Judge dismisses lawsuit over Buffalo Wild Wings’ ‘boneless wings’

Buffalo Wild Wings can keep calling its menu item “boneless wings” as such, a federal judge ruled Tuesday, dismissing a lawsuit that claimed the name amounted to false advertising.

US District Judge John Tharp in Illinois issued a 10-page ruling allowing the sports bar chain to continue calling its menu item “boneless wings,” after a Chicago man filed a lawsuit accusing the restaurant of false advertising, saying the boneless wings were overpriced because they are essentially chicken nuggets.

While Aimen Halim argued in the lawsuit that Buffalo Wild Wings should call the product something different, like “chicken poppers,” Tharp said the argument had no meat on its bones.

“Halim did not ‘drum’ up enough factual allegations to state a claim,” Tharp wrote. “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.'”

Halim sued Buffalo Wild Wings shortly after he visited the restaurant in January 2023, claiming he was deceived by the chain’s marketing.

Halim alleged that the boneless wings are just “slices of chicken breast meat deep-fried like wings,” and that customers would either pay less for the boneless wings or not purchase them at all if they knew what was in the product.

Halim said he later regretted buying the item after learning how it was made, which he claimed caused him to suffer “a financial injury as a result of defendants’ false and deceptive 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 sold them since 2003.

“Boneless wings are not a niche product for which a consumer would need to do extensive research to figure out the truth,” he wrote. “Instead, ‘boneless wings’ is a common term that has existed 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 an Ohio Supreme Court ruling from 2024, where the court ruled that “[a] diner reading ‘boneless wings’ on a menu would no more believe that the restaurant was warranting the absence of bones in the items than believe that the items were made from chicken wings, just as a person eating ‘chicken fingers’ would know that he had not been served fingers.”

Tharp added that a “reasonable consumer” would not think that the food chain’s boneless wings were “truly deboned chicken wings, reconstituted into some sort of Franken-wing.”

The court is allowing Halim to submit an amended complaint by March 20, although Tharp noted that it “is difficult to imagine” that he can provide additional facts that would demonstrate that Buffalo Wild Wings “is committing a deceptive act.”

FOX Business’ Landon Mion contributed to this report.