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Buffalo Wild Wings can hold calling its menu merchandise “boneless wings,” a federal choose dominated Tuesday, dismissing a lawsuit that claimed the identify amounted to false promoting.
U.S. District Choose John Tharp in Illinois issued a 10-page ruling permitting the sports activities bar chain to proceed calling its menu merchandise “boneless wings,” after a Chicago man filed a lawsuit accusing the restaurant of false promoting, saying the boneless wings had been overpriced as a result of they’re primarily hen nuggets.
Whereas Aimen Halim argued within the lawsuit that Buffalo Wild Wings ought to name the product one thing completely different, like “hen poppers,” Tharp stated the argument had no meat on its bones.
“Halim didn’t ‘drum’ up sufficient factual allegations to state a declare,” Tharp wrote. “Although he has standing to carry the declare as a result of he plausibly alleged financial harm, he doesn’t plausibly allege that cheap customers are fooled by BWW’s use of the time period ‘boneless wings.'”
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A federal choose dominated that Buffalo Wild Wings can proceed utilizing the time period “boneless wings” after dismissing a lawsuit that claimed the identify was deceptive. (Tiffany Hagler-Geard/Bloomberg by way of Getty Photographs / Getty Photographs)
Halim sued Buffalo Wild Wings shortly after he visited the restaurant in January 2023, claiming he was deceived by the chain’s advertising.
Halim alleged that the boneless wings are simply “slices of hen breast meat deep-fried like wings,” and that prospects would both pay much less for the boneless wings or not buy them in any respect in the event that they knew what was within the product.
Halim stated he later regretted shopping for the merchandise after studying the way it was made, which he claimed triggered him to undergo “a monetary harm because of defendants’ false and misleading conduct.”
In his ruling, Tharp stated that whereas boneless wings are “primarily hen nuggets,” the product idea was not new, noting that Buffalo Wild Wings had bought them since 2003.
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A federal choose dominated that Buffalo Wild Wings’ boneless wings will not be misleading, dismissing a lawsuit over the menu merchandise’s identify. (iStock / iStock)
“Boneless wings will not be a distinct segment product for which a shopper would want to do intensive analysis to determine the reality,” he wrote. “As a substitute, ‘boneless wings’ is a typical time period that has existed for over twenty years.”
Halim accused Buffalo Wild Wings of violating the Illinois Client Fraud Act, breach of categorical guarantee, widespread regulation fraud and unjust enrichment.
Tharp additionally cited an Ohio Supreme Court docket ruling from 2024, the place the court docket dominated that “[a] diner studying ‘boneless wings’ on a menu would no extra consider that the restaurant was warranting the absence of bones within the objects than consider that the objects had been made out of hen wings, simply as an individual consuming ‘hen fingers’ would know that he had not been served fingers.”
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A choose rejected claims that Buffalo Wild Wings’ boneless wings labeling deceives prospects. (Getty / Getty Photographs)
Tharp added {that a} “cheap shopper” wouldn’t assume that the meals chain’s boneless wings had been “really deboned hen wings, reconstituted into some type of Franken-wing.”
The court docket is permitting Halim to submit an amended criticism by March 20, though Tharp famous that it “is troublesome to think about” that he can present further information that might reveal that Buffalo Wild Wings “is committing a misleading act.”
FOX Enterprise’ Landon Mion contributed to this report.
