CHICAGO (WGN) — A judge has ruled Buffalo Wild Wings is allowed to continue calling their boneless wings “boneless,” even though they are “essentially chicken nuggets.”
The ruling comes after a Chicago man, identified as Aimen Halim, filed a lawsuit in March of 2023, claiming BWW’s boneless wings are not actually wings.
The complaint sought to challenge what it called “the false and deceptive marketing and advertising of Buffalo Wild Wings’ Boneless Wings,” and went on to say, “Specifically, the name and description of the Products (i.e., as “Boneless Wings”) leads reasonable consumers to believe the Products are actually chicken wings.”
According to Halim, the chain’s description of their boneless wings leads customers to believe their boneless wings are deboned chicken wings made up completely of chicken wing meat, but the product is actually slices of chicken breast deep fried like chicken wings, and compositionally more like chicken nuggets.
In January of 2023, Halim bought boneless wings from a Buffalo Wild Wings in Mount Prospect, Illinois and thought just that: the boneless wings he purchased were exclusively made from chicken wing meat.
When he realized the boneless wings weren’t deboned chicken wings, he said he would not have bought them or would have paid significantly less for the product.
As a result, Halim said he suffered a financial injury due to the restaurant’s “false and deceptive conduct.”
Despite his efforts, Illinois Judge John Tharp Jr. ruled on Tuesday that Halim’s argument did not have enough meat on the bone.
“Boneless wings are not a niche product for which a consumer would need to do extensive research to figure out the truth. Instead, ‘boneless wings’ is a common term that has existed for over two decades,” Tharp wrote.
The judge went on to say, “Despite his best efforts, Halim did not ‘drum’ up enough factual allegations to state a claim. Though he has standing to bring the claim because he plausibly alleged economic injury, he does not plausibly allege that reasonable consumers are fooled by BWW’s use of the term ‘boneless wings.'”
When the lawsuit was first filed in 2023, Buffalo Wild Wings provided a tweet in response to a request for comment from WGN, which said, “It’s true. Our boneless wings are all white meat chicken. Our hamburgers contain no ham. Our buffalo wings are 0% buffalo.”
