A man sued a restaurant after a bone in his ‘boneless’ wings got lodged in his throat. He lost.

Boneless wings aren’t actually wings at all, and it confuses some diners.

They’re typically made from strips or chunks of chicken breast meat, which are breaded and fried. The name is used to differentiate them from traditional bone-in wings.

The confusion has led to at least one lawsuit. In 2023, a man sued Buffalo Wild Wings, claiming that the name of its boneless wings was misleading. Before it added boneless wings to its menu this year, Popeyes had considered alternative names, like “bites.”

And International Wing Factory in New York City simply refers to the product as “boneless chicken.”

‘Boneless wing is merely a description of the cooking style’

Berkheimer said that he had cut the boneless wing into three pieces to eat, per court documents.

“A bone of that size would have encompassed nearly the entire third bite of the boneless wing,” the Court of Appeals wrote. “We conclude a reasonable person could have anticipated and guarded against a similarly large-sized bone concealed in a bite size piece of chicken,” it added.

Berkheimer also appealed to Ohio’s Supreme Court, which supported the Court of Appeals’ ruling in an opinion on Thursday.

In response to Berkheimer’s argument that the product was described as a “boneless wing,” the Supreme Court wrote that it’s “common sense that that label was merely a description of the cooking style” and that it wasn’t a guarantee the chicken wouldn’t contain any bones.

In statements to BI, Berkheimer’s lawyers expressed their disappointment with the ruling, and it said it rendered the word “boneless” as “completely meaningless.”

Business Insider contacted Wings on Brookwood, the food supplier, and the chicken farm for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.