Wild buffalo wings can continue to call its menu item “boneless wings,” a federal judge ruled Tuesday, dismissing a lawsuit that claimed the name amounted to false advertising.
U.S. District Judge John Tharp in Illinois issued a 10-page decision allowing the sports bar chain to continue calling its menu “boneless wings,” after a Chicago man filed a lawsuit accusing the restaurant of false advertising, claiming the boneless wings were overpriced because they were essentially chicken nuggets.
While Aimen Halim argued in the trial that Buffalo Wild Wings should call the product something different, like “chicken poppers,” Tharp said the argument has no meat on its bones.
“Halim has not made sufficient factual allegations to make a claim,” Tharp wrote. “Although he has standing to bring suit because he has plausibly alleged economic harm, he does not plausibly allege that reasonable consumers are deceived by BWW’s use of the term ‘boneless wings’.”
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A federal judge has ruled that Buffalo Wild Wings can continue to use the term “boneless wings” after dismissing a lawsuit claiming the name was misleading. (Tiffany Hagler-Geard/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Halim sued Buffalo Wild Wings shortly after visiting the restaurant in January 2023, claiming he was misled by the chain’s marketing.
Halim alleged that boneless wings are just “slices of chicken breast fried like wings” and that customers would pay less for boneless wings or not buy them at all if they knew what was in the product.
Halim said he later regretted purchasing the item after learning how it was made, which he said caused him “financial harm due to the defendants’ false and misleading conduct.”
In his ruling, Tharp said that while boneless wings are “essentially chicken nuggets,” the product concept was not new, noting that Buffalo Wild Wings had has been selling them since 2003.
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A federal judge has ruled that Buffalo Wild Wings’ boneless wings are not misleading, dismissing a lawsuit over the menu item’s name. (iStock/iStock)
“Boneless wings are not a niche product where a consumer would need to do extensive research to discover the truth,” he wrote. “Instead, ‘boneless wings’ is a common term that has been around for over two decades. »
Halim accused Buffalo Wild Wings of violating the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act, breach of express warranty, common law fraud and unjust enrichment.
Tharp also cited a 2024 Ohio Supreme Court decision, in which the court ruled that “[a] A customer reading “boneless wings” on a menu would no more believe that the restaurant guaranteed no bones in the dishes than believing that the dishes were made from chicken wings, just as a person eating “chicken fingers” would know that they were not served fingers. »
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A judge has rejected claims that Buffalo Wild Wings’ labeling of boneless wings misled customers. (Getty/Getty Images)
Tharp added that a “reasonable consumer” would not think the food chain’s boneless wings were “actual boneless chicken wings, reconstituted into some sort of Franken wing.”
The court allows Halim to file an amended complaint by March 20, although Tharp noted that it “is difficult to imagine” that he could provide additional facts that would demonstrate that Buffalo Wild Wings “is committing a deceptive act.”
Landon Mion of FOX Business contributed to this report.
