It’s nice to see a win over the hate mob. Hopefully this will be a lesson to others, but I doubt it.
(CNN)An Ohio jury has ordered Oberlin College to pay $11 million to a bakery which said it was libeled and wrongfully accused of racially profiling students.
The case stems from the November 2016 arrests of three black Oberlin students at Gibson’s Bakery and market near the college’s campus in Oberlin, Ohio.One student, Jonathan Aladin, was accused of attempted robbery for allegedly trying to “steal wine or otherwise illegally obtain wine” from the bakery, according to a defamation lawsuit. He would eventually confess in a written statement to buying alcohol illegally.Two other suspects, Cecelia Whettston and Endia J. Lawrence, were arrested and accused of misdemeanor assault, court documents state.After that, Oberlin staff members tried to discredit the family-owned bakery, the lawsuit says.
Oberlin College staff — including deans and professors — and students engaged in demonstrations in front of Gibson’s Bakery following the arrests of the three students, the lawsuit stated.The suit also said Oberlin Vice President and Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo and other college staff members “handed out hundreds of copies” of a flier to the community and the media stating that Gibson’s Bakery and its owners racially profiled and discriminated against the three students.The court documents include a copy of the flier, which included the words “DON’T BUY.”“This is a RACIST establishment with a LONG ACCOUNT of RACIAL PROFILING and DISCRIMINATION,” the flier read, according to the lawsuit.
The flier also listed 10 of the bakery’s competitors and urged customers to shop there instead.
It may not be a lesson to others, but it’s great to see them pay. It also helps to establish a precedent for future justice.
A glorious victory over the leftist intersectional hate mob!
A great day to be in America.
Lots of great days with Trump in charge. With many more to come.
Social Justice Warriors searching for a cause.
Nord,
Is this a great ruling?
I missed your open celebration of civil morality prevailing here.
And the liberal elite just keep digging their hole even deeper. The $11.2 million defamation award wasn’t enough to give the progressive activists reason to reconsider their behavior. While the jurors are still considering an additional $22.4 million in punitive damages the college’s General Counsel, exhibiting even more of the brilliance that lost them the case, sent out a blast e-mail criticizing these same jurors for their decision. Apparently the concept of stupidity having financial liabilities is completely beyond Oberlin College’s grasp.
k:
You miss lots of stuff so you shouldn’t be surprised.
As far as the ruling; if Oberlin did what it was convicted of as policy, I’m OK with the decision. If it was done by staff without the blessing of the institution, then it was probably over kill. Let’s wait until all the appeals (and I’m sure it will be appealed) are done before we get too heady.
That was weak tea.
I don’t quite get a sense of enthusiasm for victory over liberal bullies with that vanilla statement.
You get more excited about wastewater permits.
Nort remains clueless: “…as policy,…”
Speaking of missing stuff, Oberlin wasn’t sued over policy, numbnutz. They were sued over the direct actions and lies of their staff.
From trial day 2:
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Once again, she initialed and it seems like everyone in the courtroom was shocked at what they had observed. The Dean of Students at a prominent liberal arts college, who had been at this protest and passed out that very flyer that claimed the business owners has unjustly assaulted students, and was the advisor to the student senate that said the little bakery had a “history or racial profiling,” told the jury that “I don’t know” and “it depends on the circumstances” if such accusations were bad for one who is the subject of the attack.
Where all this originated was when an Oberlin College male student and his two female student friends were involved in being caught shoplifting wine at Gibson’s on Nov. 9, 2016. A scuffle occurred both inside and outside the store, before the three were arrested. This all happened the day after Donald Trump was elected president, and the resulting protest by 150-200 students on Nov. 10-11 was a “mob mentality” outside the store, according to testimony by the first police officer there.
That same former Oberlin Police officer, Victor Ortiz, testified that the assault was not something the Gibson’s employee as taking part in, except as the victim of assault. “When we got there, we saw two young ladies standing over [the Gibson employee] and throwing haymakers at him,” he said. “The two women would stand over him and kick him, and then crouch down and throw punches. As we got closer, we could see him on his back, with the male [shoplifter] on top of him and punching him.”
One of the themes of this lawsuit is that Oberlin College was trying to cater to a segment of its students – either radical social justice warriors or minorities or the rudimentary minds of some college students who love any and all angst – and side with them in this time of cultural and political partisanship. The attorneys for Gibson’s are emphasizing repeatedly that the school lost its basic understanding of what the adult in the room is supposed to do, and a small business that has been serving the school as a food provider and city business treasure for more than 100 years was damaged as an innocent bystander business in the process.
Some of these themes came out as Raimondo’s testimony ended for the day (she will be back tomorrow morning).
The plaintiffs have insinuated that the school ended the business deal they had with Gibson’s (for some cafeteria grub and meeting party trays) because the business had refused to drop the legal charges against the students. Emails to and from Raimondo, and other high ranking Oberlin College administrators, had said that their food contract would have resumed “had the Gibson’s been willing to support a resolution outside of the legal system.”
Another email said, “once charges are dropped, orders will resume” and that students “will find [resuming orders] hard to accept” without the charges being dropped. Another email stated that school cannot settle with Gibson’s by “giving them everything and getting nothing in return.”
Raimondo responded that this discussion of resuming business with Gibson’s was decided by a group of administrators and she “didn’t know what the legal matter were” at that time.
If all this wasn’t enough for Oberlin College not to be pleased with the evidence presented today, the plaintiffs also called, Rick McDaniel, the director of security for Oberlin College from 1980 to 1995. He still lives in the city and is very active in community groups.
McDaniel said he had known the Gibson family for close to 40 years, and “never heard or observed, never been an allegation or gossip, about the Gibson’s being racist.” Vicky Gaines, an Oberlin College staff nurse in the school’s health care facility, and an African-American Oberlin city native, also told the jury “I’ve known them for about 40 years, our kids played together, we go to their sporting event, eat at each other’s homes, no, never even heard of the thought of as being racist.”
Gaines said she also went downtown to the protest, went inside the store, and gave a big hug to Lorna Gibson, wife of David Gibson, one of the plaintiffs in this case. “I walked outside with her so we could look together at what I saw happening, and I wanted her to know people in the community in Oberlin were behind them on this,” she said. “She was distraught, very hurt, and you could see the pain in their faces from what was happening right outside their store.”
McDaniel also went downtown when he heard the protests had started. He said when he got to the small downtown he noticed a large group of students, which he described as “Anger. Noise, Venom … [students] very angry and disturbed and irate and they wanted to take it out on somebody.”
McDaniel said he started taking pictures with his cell phone, and a young man came up to him and started blocking his phone with flyers in his hand. McDaniel said he kept moving and the man moved with him, blocking his ability to take picture over and over. “I’m with the college,” the man answered when the former Oberlin College police chief asked him why he was blocking his ability to take pictures.
McDaniel testified he found out later the man hounding him over picture taking was Julio Reyes, associate director of the school’s multi-resource center. “He was attempting to intimidate me and I don’t intimidate easily,” McDaniel said.
“I told him ‘I’m going to just going to wait until your silly ass leaves and [I’ll] start taking pictures again without you trying to block me,.’ “McDaniel testified. “He answered that he was going to come back when I wasn’t looking and key my car.”
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For the rest of you who are interested in actual fact rather than modeling, instead of the Charlatan News Network gloss-over spend an hour or three reading the complete storyline at https://legalinsurrection.com/tag/oberlin-college-gibsons-bakery/
Personally, I hope the jury slams Oberlin with the full punitive amount, richly deserved.
Nord likes to enable and hedge on this kind of awful liberal bullying.
Typical liberal.
k and m:
You guys really need to read for comprehension. And quit trying to put your words in the mouths of others. I gave you an answer. If you don’t like it, tough. Nowhere did I call either of you names. But if doing that makes you feel special, go with what you know.
And today the jury awarded the Gibsons $22 million in punitive damages, plus attorney fees. That’s some expensive social justice.
@Wizard : the jury sent a yuuuuuge message by awarding $33 million in punitive, but due to an Ohio law there is a cap of twice compensatory previously determined, so it may be reduced to $22m. There are exceptions to the Ohio law, however. The judge gets to set the final number.
But that’s not all. The jury also stipulated that Oberloon will also have to fork over Gibsons’ attorney fees, which are usually payed by the plaintiff, and usually 1/3 of the monies already awarded. That could add up to another $11 mil to Oberloon’s tab. Again, the judge determines the attorneys’ fees.
My crystal ball ($1.99 at Walmart) says the liberal takeaway from this event will be that trial by jury is now an institutional injustice that needs to be abolished because liberals can no longer be assured fair judgement by a panel of “their” peers. Somewhat similar to their calls to abolish the Electoral College because it interferes with election rigging.
Try the Bob Uecker 8-Ball version. More expensive and vague, but makes for a sillier conversation piece.
The libs might make that noise but I think there are WAY too many trial lawyers – and money – out there to let it actually happen. The libs will probably try to paint this as a violation of the First Amendment. Good luck with that.
I am greatly encouraged by the townsfolk, though. Seems they have had quite enough of the Oberloons. Black, white, green, blue; they all came out and supported the Gibsons.
And equally encouraging, there seems to be a growing number of law firms willing to go on the offensive against SJWs in these types of cases. Think SPLC, Covington…
RRRRAAAAAAAAAAACISM