File this one under, “someone with a lot of time on their hands,” as TMZ brings word that a potential class action lawsuit has been filed against Buffalo Wild Wings and their parent company, Inspire Brands. The complaint was filed today in the US District Court in the Northern District of Illinois. Plaintiff Aimen Halim is suing the company over “false and deceptive marketing and advertising” specifically with regard to their Boneless Wings. As the suit reads, and which many an internet meme has noted in the past, the “boneless wings” are not actually deboned chicken wings, but chicken breast meat, not unlike chicken nuggets.
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“The name and description of the Products (i.e., as “Boneless Wings”) leads reasonable consumers to believe the Products are actually chicken wings,” the suit reads in its first pages. “In other words, that the Products are chicken wings that have simply been deboned, and as such, are comprised of entirely chicken wing meat…Unbeknownst to Plaintiff and other consumers, the Products are not wings at all, but instead, slices of chicken breast meat deep-fried like wings. Indeed, the Products are more akin, in composition, to a chicken nugget rather than a chicken wing.”
The suit also adds that “Had Plaintiff and other consumers known that the Products are not actually chicken wings, they would have paid less for them, or would not have purchased them at all,” later adding that the plaintiff “suffered a financial injury as a result of Defendants’ false and deceptive conduct” after eating “Boneless Wings” at a Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant in January of this year.
As frivolous as this lawsuit might seem from to the outside observer, the suit does note that other restuarants are quick to note that their “boneless” chicken is made from chicken breast meat and not wing meat, specifically citing Dominos’ “Boneless Chicken” and Papa John’s “Chicken poppers.” That said, Buffalo Wild Wings has previously pushed back against claims that their boneless wings aren’t made form wing meat, tweeting about it when the same claims went viral years ago.
Food lawsuits of this degree are not entirely uncommon with recent examples including Barilla pasta being sued for not actually being manufactured in Italy (their slogan reads “Italy’s #1 Brand of Pasta”), Kraft Velveeta being sued for the cook time that is present on the packaging, and Canada Dry being sued for the amount of ginger within their ginger ale (they eventually settled that one for $200k).
