The American legal system has made some controversial rulings recently. Last month, the Ohio Supreme Court sowed serious social division and redefined the state’s concept of freedom, justice, and boneless chicken.
Back in 2016, a man ordered a plate of boneless wings at a north Cincinnati restaurant called Wings On Brookwood. While eating one of the pieces, he felt something in his throat as he swallowed. He could not cough up the morsel and spent the rest of the night in an uncomfortable state.
The next day, he developed a fever and went to accident and emergency, where doctors discovered a tiny chicken bone had torn the wall of his oesophagus, resulting in a massive infection in his thoracic cavity. This led to two separate operations and weeks in hospital.
He sued the restaurant and its supplier, arguing negligence.
However, the county’s lower court and the district court of appeals both ruled against the man. He and his lawyer still maintained there was fowl play, so they took the case to the Ohio Supreme Court.
In late July, the top court delivered its verdict, denying his appeal and agreeing with the lower courts which had suggested “common sense dictated the presence of bone fragments in meat dishes”.
In partisan America, the judicial split vote was four to three, with the majority Republican judges prevailing over the three minority Democrat voices.
One of the conservative judges opined: “A diner reading ‘boneless wings’ on a menu would no more believe that the restaurant was warranting the absence of bones in the items … as a person eating ‘chicken fingers’ would know that he had not been served fingers”.
A dissenting liberal robe said in rebuttal: “The result in this case is another nail in the coffin of the American jury system … This defies logic, it defies reason, it defies common sense. Now the definition of boneless, according to the Ohio Supreme Court, means … it could have a bone.”
Keep in mind the context that frivolous lawsuits occur all the time in the US. I suspect the judges had seen their share of people suing for injuries for coffee being too hot or claiming false advertising over food served not resembling the more delicious picture in an ad.
I find this case fascinating and entertaining, although personally, I don’t have a dog in the fight. Living in Asia, I almost expect weird stuff to end up in my food. Bits of bone, gristle, plastic and paper have shown up in my dishes at local dives. The worst was once finding a cigarette butt in a dumpling.
Back then, it never occurred to me to sue. I just assumed stuff happens in dodgy Hong Kong kitchens. If I complained, the chef might come at me with his cleaver. Nowadays, maybe I can launch a class-action suit against century egg manufacturers if their preserved green yolks aren’t actually 100 years old.
The real ramification of the Ohio ruling is the precedent it might set. Will vegetarians have any recourse if a chef doesn’t inform them he uses lard in the pastry of his spinach pie?
What if someone with a serious nut allergy gets served traces of nut despite them warning the restaurant beforehand? There is a wrongful death case now in Florida along exactly these lines after a woman allergic to nuts and dairy products died having eating food she had been assured contained neither in Disney World.
I can’t wait for the TV spin-off about these cases – Law & Food Order: Special Menu Unit.
