A boneless wonder

Speaking in Parliament in 1931 Winston Churchill brutally disparaged the Labor Prime Minister as “a boneless wonder”:

I remember when I was a child, being taken to the celebrated Barnum’s circus, which contained an exhibition of freaks and monstrosities, but the exhibit on the program which I most desired to see was the one described as “The Boneless Wonder.” My parents judged that that spectacle would be too revolting and demoralizing for my youthful eyes, and I have waited fifty years to see the Boneless Wonder sitting on the Treasury Bench.

Who was that prime minister and was that unparliamentary language? Richard Langworth tells all.

Now comes one Aimen Halim to complain of his visit to a Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant in Mount Prospect, Illinois, where he bought an order of “boneless wings.” Halim seeks to have a class action certified against the company for selling breast meat in the boneless wings. Jacob Sullum humorously ridicules Halim’s lawsuit in the Reason column “A Class Action Reveals the Horrifying Truth: ‘Boneless Wings’ Are Breast Meat!” Before finding Sullum’s column I heard from a lawyer for another restaurant chain who condemned the lawsuit in the same spirit:

This week plaintiffs’ lawyers in Illinois initiated a class action against Buffalo Wild Wings, the national sports bar chain, because it had allegedly deceived customers over its “boneless wings.” Really.

This litigation is as absurd as taking offense that “chicken fingers” are not, in fact, the fingers of a chicken; that “baby carrots” are not, in fact, newborn root vegetables; or that a “hamburger” isn’t made of ham. But it’s more than just facially absurd—it also represents an insidious threat to the restaurant industry, which has only recently begun crawling out of the hole of the pandemic.

America’s food service operators just endured the most challenging business environment in the industry’s history. Many (particularly small and mid-sized operators) are still struggling to find a pre-pandemic equilibrium. Litigation of this sort is a malicious, direct threat to the livelihood of the 15 million Americans employed in the industry.

A cursory internet (and Uber Eats) search shows that many restaurant chains offer boneless wings. That’s not to mention the hundreds, if not thousands, of single-unit family-owned restaurants that market and sell them.

This litigation will likely spawn others like it, and only the largest national portfolios can shoulder the burden. If there is any chance you can apply some public pressure by exposing the outrageousness of this claim, it would do a great deal to stifle additional potential class claims. I can also help get some data from the National Restaurant Association on potential jobs impacted by this claim if it would help.

I am afraid my correspondent vastly overestimates the power of Power Line. However, I appreciate to quote Churchill on the theme and to state seriously that in my opinion it is a boneless lawsuit.