“Mr. Berkheimer suffered catastrophic injuries from a bone contained in a menu item unambiguously advertised as ‘boneless’ at every level of commerce. All we asked is that a jury be able to make a commonsense determination as to whether he should be able to recover for his injuries. But the court’s majority ruled otherwise, simultaneously denying him that opportunity, and rendering the word ‘boneless’ completely meaningless,” said plaintiff’s counsel, Robb S. Stokar, a Cincinnati attorney at Stokar Law.
In a 4-3 majority opinion issued last week, the Ohio Supreme Court rejected a customer’s attempt to hold a restaurant and its suppliers liable as a matter of law after he unexpectedly swallowed a bone from what he thought was a boneless chicken wing.
The plaintiff, Michael Berkheimer, sued REKM, doing business as the restaurant Wings on Brookwood, its food supplier, GFS, and Wayne Farms, the manufacturer of the chicken product, after he sustained an injury for swallowing a bone that measured more than an inch long from his “boneless” chicken wing. Berkheimer’s counsel, Robb S. Stokar, a Cincinnati attorney at Stokar Law, argued that the defendants should be held liable as Berkheimer wasn’t expecting a bone to be in the food, which was represented from being free of such substance.
