Are boneless chicken wings just a chicken nugget?
Can cauliflower have wings?
Can parts of a chicken be “reconstructed into some sort of Frankenwing?”
Those were some of the big questions answered Tuesday by a federal judge in Illinois who concluded that boneless chicken wings can be sold as chicken wings.
In a 10-page ruling, U.S. District Judge John J. Tharp, Jr. sided with Buffalo Wild Wings in a lawsuit filed by a customer who claimed he was deceived by the brand’s boneless wings.
Matt Locke/AP – Photo: Buffalo Wild Wings
“Words can have multiple meanings — in fact, the term ‘buffalo wings’ refers to the type of sauce on the wings rather than indicating that it is made from buffalo meat,” Sapp wrote.
The lawsuit stems from an Illinois man’s 2023 visit to the local Buffalo Wild Wings team. Aimen Halim said he was deceived by the company, which marketed its boneless wings in the “wings” section of its menu.
“What plaintiffs and other consumers did not know was that these products were not chicken wings at all, but chicken breast slices that were fried like chicken wings. In fact, these products were compositionally more similar to chicken nuggets than to chicken wings,” Halim argued in the lawsuit, which seeks punitive damages and the return of company profits.
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Buffalo Wild Wings disputes those claims, arguing in court filings that the Seventh Circuit has recognized that many “truly false statements are not deceptive.” The company also pointed to another alternative to chicken wings – cauliflower.
The judge also considered this argument carefully.
“Cauliflower wings are sold in the ‘Chicken Wings’ section of the BWW menu as a substitute for chicken wings. If Halim is right, reasonable consumers should assume that cauliflower wings are made (at least in part) from chicken wing meat. But this is not the case,” Sapp wrote. “‘Boneless Wings’ is also obviously a whimsical name because chickens do have wings, and those wings have bones in them.”
The judge also rejected claims in the lawsuit that if customers ordered boneless wings, they would expect something else to arrive at their table.
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“A reasonable consumer would not assume that BWW’s boneless wings are actual boneless wings reconstituted into some kind of Franken wings,” he wrote.
“Halim sued BWW because of his confusion, but his complaint was without substance,” the judge concluded. He later wrote in the opinion that Halim “did not ‘make’ sufficient factual allegations to state a claim.”
“Although he has standing to bring a claim because he plausibly alleges financial harm, he does not plausibly allege that reasonable consumers were fooled by BWW’s use of the term ‘boneless wings,'” he wrote.
ABC News has reached out to attorneys for Buffalo Wild Wings and Halim for their reaction to the judge’s ruling.
