The Ohio Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that "boneless chicken wings" need not be boneless.
The tortured argument -
- “boneless wings” refers to a cooking style
- it’s common knowledge that chickens have bones
- A boneless wing is not made from wings, hence the word boneless does not imply boneless.
I.e., corporations can decide what words mean. The ruling will make Thomas and Alitio proud.
3 judges are up for re-election this Nov - 2 Democrats and 1 Republican.
This reminds us of a case that went the other way on misleading product labels, where SCOTUS ruled against Coca-cola for calling their product "Pomegranate Blueberry" when it contained just 0.3% pomegranate juice and 0.2% blueberry juice.
A lawyer representing Coca-Cola argued that consumers aren't dumb enough to think that just because a juice is labeled "Pomegranate Blueberry" there will be lots of pomegranates and blueberries in it
https://www.businessinsider.com/anthony-kennedy-coca-cola-supreme-court-2014-4
2/n
Note that one can reasonably argue that one should exercise caution when eating boneless chicken wings or boneless fish and not expect them to be 100% bone free.
But the majority of the court used some twisted logic based on parsing of words, rather than the common-sense argument. Also, it disallowed the case to go to a jury trial.
The dissent also noted that a warning label would be appropriate for such products.
https://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/rod/docs/pdf/0/2024/2024-ohio-2787.pdf
3/n
@AkaSci I guess the world is in excellent shape, and everyone on the planet lives in abundance. Peace, love and tranquility soar across the globe. And the only useful thing supreme court has available is discuss a case of boneless chicken wings.