‘Boneless’ chicken wings can have bones, the Ohio Supreme Court says
https://www.npr.org/2024/07/25/nx-s1-5052004/boneless-chicken-wings-ohio-supreme-court
I agree with the dissent in this case. What kind of Alice in wonderland bullshit are we living in where when you say boneless, you actually mean “THERE MAY BE BONES OVER AN INCH LONG IN THEM!”??
Words have meaning. It really shows how much these fuckers are cutting corners. If anything it’s negligence for allowing a product such as this to reach the customer, get lodged in his throat, slice open his esophagus, get infected, and require two surgeries.
If the boneless wings had glass in them, would they be held negligent?
Here’s the bit of dissent from the article.
"Dissenting Justices argued that a jury should have been allowed to determine whether the restaurant and suppliers were negligent, and called Deters’ reasoning “utter jabberwocky.”
“When they read the word ‘boneless,’ they think that it means ‘without bones,’ as do all sensible people,” wrote Justice Michael P. Donnelly in dissent."
I can understand tiny pieces of bone making it in there, but a 1 and 3/8ths inch bone. That’s nearly the length of the wing! It just seems like negligence on the meat processor (not necessarily on the restaurant)
I’d say the restaurant is in charge of final QC. They’re handling it while cooking. This doesn’t absolve the producer, but, they do have an obligation to serve safe food.
But I’m also pretty irritated by supposed wing joints passing off frozen Cisco foods wings as their own when all they do is heat them in a microwave and toss some sauce.
Much like compressive or tensile forces, responsibility is perfectly capable of fully inhabiting every step of a series.
So if you put a linear stack of styrofoam blocks (negligible weight but some structural strength) and then put a 10 lb weight on top, every block in the stack experiences 10 lbs of force.
In the same way, I think every person along such a chain of custody can each, independently, be held fully responsible for a fuckup that makes its way down that line.
They toss the frozen wings into the fryer so that the breading stays crispy… The microwave ruins breading making it rubbery or mushy.
Equally as amazing as the processor missing a 1 inch bone is someone chewing so little that they didn’t notice the bone. You’re not a snake chew your food.
I take this as a positive. The Ohio Supreme Court just protected trans rights, when it applies to nuggets.
Not surprised this happened in Ohio
Funny headline aside, semantics and trying to understand expected meanings of words and phrases is fucky and makes for an interesting case. Per the article the court decision was only 4-3 (i.e., close), and the dissent seemed – as a person who admittedly is not well-versed in the language normally used by Ohio’s Supreme Court – to be pretty strongly opinionated.
From the snippets in the article I find it pretty easy to sympathize with both sides of the argument!
edit: the full text is available here (the original unarchived source is being hammered by curious people) - you can download the file to read it in full-res
The question seems to be: “did the restaurant exercise reasonable duty of care”. There is a lot more to the case than the fun-but-sensationalized headline and even article.
Milton: We use only the finest baby frogs, dew picked and flown from Iraq, cleansed in finest quality spring water, lightly killed, and then sealed in a succulent Swiss quintuple smooth treble cream milk chocolate envelope and lovingly frosted with glucose.
Praline: That’s as maybe, it’s still a frog.
Milton: What else?
Praline: Well don’t you even take the bones out?
Milton: If we took the bones out it wouldn’t be crunchy would it?
Praline: Superintendent Parrot ate one of those.
Parrot: Excuse me a moment. (exits hurriedly)
Milton: It says ‘crunchy frog’ quite clearly.
Praline: Well, the superintendent thought it was an almond whirl. People won’t expect there to be a frog in there. They’re bound to think it’s some form of mock frog.
Milton: (insulted) Mock frog? We use no artificial preservatives or additives of any kind!
Praline: Nevertheless, I must warn you that in future you should delete the words ‘crunchy frog’, and replace them with the legend ‘crunchy raw unboned real dead frog’, if you want to avoid prosecution.
