Oberlin College to pay $11 mill to Gibson's Bakery over racism lies, protests!

[Stratovarious]

They used to say stupidity is not illegal.

Also ''not an excuse in the eyes of the law'' .

[Swordsmyth]

In the Gibson’s Bakery v. Oberlin College case, the judgment for the plaintiffs amounted to almost $32 million in damages and defendants were required to post a $36 million bond to secure the judgment pending appeal.
Before appealing, Oberlin College filed two post-trial motions, a Motion for Judgment Notwithstanding The Verdict (pdf.) and Motion for a New Trial (pdf.), as explained in our post, Oberlin College Seeks New Trial in Gibson’s Bakery Case.
Gibson’s Bakery responded with an Opposition to the Motion for Judgment Notwithstanding The Verdict (pdf.), and Opposition to the Motion for a New Trial (pdf.), as explained in our post, Gibson’s Bakery: Oberlin College’s request for a new trial is “baseless”.
Judge John Miraldi has ruled, denying both motions. The Order Denying Motion for Judgment Notwithstanding the Verdict (pdf.) and Order Denying Motion for New Trial (pdf.) are embedded at the bottom of the post.


More at: https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/0...s-bakery-case/

[Occam's Banana]

Appeals court upholds $25M judgment against Oberlin College
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/...t-17051097.php
Mark Gillispie (01 April 2022)

CLEVELAND (AP) — An Ohio appeals court has upheld a $25 million judgment for a business that successfully claimed it was libeled by Oberlin College in the aftermath of a shoplifting incident that roiled the historic liberal arts school and music conservatory's campus outside Cleveland.

The 9th District Court of Appeals in Akron on Thursday rejected all of Oberlin College's claims and upheld a judge's ruling that attorneys for the owners of Gibson's Bakery and Food Mart should receive $6.3 million in legal fees from the school.

The three judge panel also agreed with Lorain County Judge John Miraldi's decision rejecting Oberlin College's motion for a new trial and denied the store owners' claim that the damage awards did not sufficiently punish the school.

In a statement, Oberlin College officials said they were disappointed by the ruling. They said they were reviewing the court's 50-page opinion “carefully as we evaluate our options and determine next steps.” Officials acknowledged that issues raised by the case have been challenging “not only for the parties involved in the lawsuit, but for the entire Oberlin community.”

Store owners Allyn Gibson and his son, David Gibson, sued Oberlin College in November 2017 claiming they had been libeled by the school and their business had been harmed. The lawsuit was filed a year after David Gibson's son, also named Allyn, chased and tackled a Black male student he suspected of having stolen a bottle of wine. Two Black female students who were with the male student tried to intervene. All three were arrested and later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges.

The arrests triggered protests outside Gibson's Bakery where flyers were handed out, some by an Oberlin College vice president and dean of students, accusing the Gibsons of being racist. A Student Senate resolution condemning the Gibsons was emailed to all students and was posted in a display case at school's student center, where it remained for a year. Oberlin College officials ordered its campus food provider to stop buying bakery items from Gibson's.

A Lorain County jury awarded the Gibsons $44 million in compensatory and punitive damages in June 2019 after a five week trial. Miraldi, the Lorain County judge, later reduced the jury award to $25 million.

David Gibson died in November 2019 at age 65. Allyn Gibson died in February. He was 93.

[sparebulb]

You can't tell me that the stress of all of this didn't play a part in Gibson's death at the age of 65.

I hope the family gets every penny of the $25 million.

[Occam's Banana]

Oberlin College Still Refusing to Pay $33 Million in Damages to Bakery it Slandered as Racist
https://www.breitbart.com/education/...red-as-racist/
Paul Bois (11 April 2022)

Oberlin College in Ohio has refused to pay its owed $33 million in court-ordered damage to a family-owned bakery slandered as racist.

An Ohio court ordered Oberlin College to pay Gibson’s Bakery up to $33 million for defamation damages in 2019 after the college’s dean of students orchestrated a woke mob into slandering the family as racists for calling the police on three black students for shoplifting a bottle of wine. The money was to be paid to the bakery by April 1, but the college has refused to pay it despite the fact that two of the plaintiffs are now deceased.

[...]

Fueling the flames was none other than the college’s dean of students, Meredith Raimondo, who distributed leaflets accusing the bakery of racist practices.

[...]

Three years later, Oberlin has yet to pay the bakery even though two of the plaintiffs have now died: David Gibson at age 65 and Allyn Gibson at age 93.

Both Oberlin College and Raimondo had their appeals denied this month.

“Oberlin is obviously disappointed that the appeals court affirmed the judgment in its ruling. We are reviewing the Court’s opinion carefully as we evaluate our options and determine next steps,” the college told the Mail.

“In the meantime, we recognize that the issues raised by this case have been challenging, not only for the parties involved in the lawsuit, but for the entire Oberlin community,” it continued. “We remain committed to strengthening the partnership between the College, the City of Oberlin and its residents, and the downtown business community. We will continue in that important work while remaining focused on our core educational mission.”

[sparebulb]

https://nypost.com/2022/09/01/how-ob...-through-hell/

How Oberlin’s slander put our family through hell


On the night of Nov., 8, 2016, Donald Trump was elected president and the country was forever changed. But for my family, it was the following night — Nov. 9, 2016 — that our world was turned upside down and has never been set right.

Late that night, my husband, David, came home from work and told me that there had been a shoplifting incident at our bakery, Gibson’s. We’ve been in business for 137 years, so we’ve had our fair share of shoplifters, including earlier that very week. That particular night, a student from the local college, Oberlin, had tried to steal two bottles of wine and use a fake ID to buy a third. Our son, Allyn, had pursued him across the street. Two more students got involved. Allyn was beaten up pretty badly, and the three students were arrested.

David was afraid the incident would blow up, since the students claimed to the police that my son had assaulted them — not the other way around. He told me he was scared it would hurt our business since the students who were arrested were black and bystanders were already claiming that Allyn had racially profiled them.

But none of us had any idea of what was about to happen.

The next day, I opened the store around 7 a.m., and soon I got a sense of what David feared. Over the next few hours, hundreds of students began to gather in front of the store. They chanted, “Boycott Gibson’s,” and held signs that said we were white supremacists. They called us racists on their bullhorns.

The students weren’t alone. College administrators were there, too, handing out flyers and addressing the crowd on a bullhorn. The protesters also distributed flyers that said we had a “LONG ACCOUNT of RACIAL PROFILING and DISCRIMINATION.”

Following the students’ arrest, boycotts occurred outside the establishment.
They blocked the door and screamed at customers who elbowed their way through to the counter. A few came in to record videos on their phones of our customers. This went on all day. Late that night, when I went to collect the tables and chairs that we keep outside for customers, I was surrounded by screaming protesters. I was frightened — and all I could think was that I needed to keep our employees safe.

The next day, the protests continued, though the police were mostly able to keep them across the street. But the damage to our relationship with the school and its students had already been done.

Before Nov. 9, our relationship to the school had been wonderful. We delivered pizza dough, bagels and cookies to the dining halls every day. We did pie and ice-cream socials for parents’ weekend and pastry trays for parties. I worked as a nurse at a local hospital until 2002, but if there were a large order, I’d often help David deliver the trays of baked goods to campus.

The crowd continued to grow with animosity towards the family business, with protesters yelling at customers who dared to step inside.
A week after the incident, the school canceled all of our standing orders. That was just the beginning of my family’s nightmare.

The school put out a statement that implied that this wasn’t an isolated incident. The school’s student senate passed a resolution urging the school to cut ties with us, which was posted in a display case at the student center. Our business from the students themselves and administrators — we have a small grocery store and sell beer and wine in addition to our pastries and candies — dried up completely. And the students kept showing up to protest.

David met with the president of the school, along with other administrators, to try to get Oberlin to retract its baseless claims that we were racist and to quell the small group of students who, in their passion, had gotten us so wrong. But Oberlin would not even consider issuing a statement and allowed the public to believe that we were in fact “racist.”

School administrators joined the boycott, canceling orders and cutting all ties with Gibson.
Cleveland19
Instead, the school proposed a deal where, in the future, if a student were caught shoplifting, we’d call the dean instead of the police. My husband and his dad believe firmly that everyone should be treated equally, so they refused.

Eventually, in 2017, we felt that we had no choice other than filing a lawsuit against Oberlin (for libel, among other things) because David’s 89-year-old father, who had dedicated his life to the business, did not want to die being falsely branded a racist.

Heartbroken
By the time the trial started, things were falling apart. We couldn’t make payroll, so we had to let go of half of our employees and cut our operating hours way back. My father-in-law, who made bagel deliveries to the college into his 80s, loved to sit outside the store all day and talk to whomever went by. He was a fixture in the community. Since word about the business with the college had spread, he’d sit outside for hours and hours, but no one would talk to him.

It broke his heart, and mine. Calling us racists wasn’t just wrong, it was deeply painful to our core.

Gibson’s Food Mart and Bakery has been in business for 137 years, but suffered severely after the incident.
AP/ Dake Kang
During the months leading up to the trial, my husband receded from my view. We didn’t really talk like we used to, and we took to co-existing in our home. He was so worried about the trial, and he didn’t want to worry me. I had a lot on my plate, too. My mother, who was suffering from dementia, was living with us. One of our bakers, his wife (an Oberlin graduate), and their 2-year-old had moved into our living room because his wife was dying of ALS. After my father-in-law got badly injured, he moved in with us, too.

To add onto everything else, six months before the trial began, my husband, David, was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer. He was still working from 7 in the morning to 11 at night, but the cancer treatments were brutal. Once the trial started, David decided to pause the treatments so he could be as strong as possible in court. It was important to him that the jury not find out that he was sick. He wanted the case to be decided on the basis of the facts alone.

When the jury found in our favor — they ruled that we were owed $44 million in damages (which was later reduced to $31 million) — relief washed over me. I thought we’d finally be able to move past this and get back to work.

But after the verdict was handed down, David and I left Oberlin to seek treatment for his cancer at bigger hospitals in the South and in New York. We found out that the cancer had spread during the trial, and that we had no recourse. Before he died in 2019, David asked me to keep the store going. “Just keep the doors open, no matter what,” he said. He gave his life for the store, and I promised him that I would do everything I could to honor his final wish.

No dough
I still haven’t seen a penny from the school.

In 2019, Oberlin appealed to have the jury verdict overturned. Ohio’s 9th District Court of Appeals rejected Oberlin’s claims and upheld the jury’s verdict. But in May 2022, Oberlin appealed again to the Ohio Supreme Court to try to avoid the jury’s decision. Thankfully, earlier this week, the Ohio Supreme Court denied Oberlin’s appeal and ruled that the school must pay us $36 million.

But even with this most recent ruling, the college, which has about a billion dollars’ worth of assets at its disposal, still refuses to pay.

We hoped that, with time, the kids who started all this would graduate, and that new students would come in and that the whole drama would fade. But I’m told that freshmen are still told to boycott us. Parents who come in tell me that their kids have been brainwashed to hate us.

I was with my father-in-law, Allyn Sr., when he died several months ago, at the age of 93. We laughed a lot during his last days. He loved his stories, and he was telling them until the end. Most of them revolved around the bakery, like when Stevie Wonder came in. Allyn Sr.’s last words to my son, a few days before he died, were: Do good, honest work.

A jury ruled Gibson’s was owed millions in damages.
AP/Dake Kang
That’s what I’ve tried to do. Like my husband and his parents, and their parents, and their parents, I open the store every day (except Christmas) at 8 a.m. I start by bringing down products from the kitchen, stocking shelves and then ordering ingredients and cleaning the store. Allyn Jr. and his wife, Erin, take care of our tech — our e-commerce business and payroll — and hand-dip our chocolates. At night, I pay bills and do the paperwork, which is endless. My house is quiet now. The family and friends I took care of are all gone.

During the week, my girlfriends come in to have coffee and snacks. We have some locals and people from the surrounding towns who support us, but it’s not enough. Our shelves are bare because there’s no foot traffic anymore, so we don’t bother stocking them. Before, there was a constant stream of people coming into the shop. Now, we might have one or two customers throughout the whole morning. We still sell our whole-wheat doughnuts, and apple fritters, chocolates and candies with homemade caramels, but far fewer of them.

If I got the money from the college, I wouldn’t buy a house, or go on vacation, or leave Ohio. I would replace the compressors for the refrigerators and replace the fryers and proofers that we use for our dough. I would pay off the mortgages on my properties that I’ve taken out in the past few years. I’d hire back employees and ramp up production.
While the Ohio Supreme Court’s recent decision has made us hopeful, if the money doesn’t come through within the next couple months, I’ll be forced to declare bankruptcy and shut the doors of Gibson’s for good.

Uncertain future
Today, I’m worried about the future of this town. I grew up here. I met David at a party in 1978, and we didn’t leave each other’s side until he died in 2019. My husband was offered a professorship in chemistry at Ohio Wesleyan after he graduated from there, but there was no question that he’d come back to Oberlin, and the bakery. At 23, before we were married, I was already running a Gibson’s branch in Elyria. He baked a five-tier stunner for our wedding.

I can’t provide wedding cakes for this town anymore, but I want to. I believe that there’s room for both Gibson’s and the college to exist.

A couple of months ago, a young girl came into the bakery. She told me she was thinking of coming to the school, and that she’d heard horrible things about our store, that we were racist, and that we should be boycotted. She knew our story, the real story, and said that all the negativity directed toward us was a turnoff for her. I said that she should make her own decision. That’s what college is for.

Then I told her that I’d love to see her come to school here. And I’d like to see her come into the bakery if she does. I hope we’ll still be here.

Lorna Gibson runs Gibson’s Bakery. Reprinted with permission from Bari Weiss’ Common Sense.

[sparebulb]

Oberlin flyer

[Occam's Banana]

Oberlin College’s insurance policy does not cover the huge verdict against it for wrongly demonizing a bakery owner as racist

Good.

$#@! them.

Hope they have to close up.

Let them take out of the alumni's asses...like Lena Dunham and Alison Bechdel

Oberlin College Sues Insurers For Refusing To Cover $36 Million It Paid Gibson’s Bakery For Defamation And Other Torts
Four insurance companies have told the college to pound sand. Have you ever rooted for insurance companies ever? There’s a first for everything.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/0...d-other-torts/
William A. Jacobson (06 August 2023)

After a six year struggle, in December 2022 Gibson’s Bakery finally was paid by Oberlin College a total of $36 million, representing a judgment of approximately $32 million plus post judgment interest. We covered the payment on December 11, 2022, Finally, The Gibson’s Bakery Family Has Been Paid By Oberlin College.

It was a six year struggle for the Gibson family, which saw Grandpa Allyn Gibson and David Gibson pass away after the trial but before the appeals were concluded.

It was a six year journey for us as well, as we covered the case almost since the inception of the protests outside the bakery in November 2016, after a black Oberlin College student was stopped for shoplifting. (He was in fact shop lifting.) The ensuing accusations by the college that the bakery had a long history of racial profiling let to a lawsuit, trial, appeals, and ultimately payment. We were there the whole way:

Gibson's Bakery Thanks Legal Insurrection
Gibson’s Bakery Thanks Legal Insurrection And Its Readers: https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/0...d-its-readers/
(See full online event: VIDEO: The Inside Story of The Gibson’s Bakery v. Oberlin College Case)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6yUcMp8gk4

Along the way, for those of you paying careful attention, a controversy bubbled up as to whether the college’s insurers would cover the verdict. We covered the potential dispute on June 9, after the $11 million compensatory verdict, but before the $33 million (eventually reduced) punitive verdict, EXCLUSIVE: Oberlin College insurer likely to reject coverage for Gibson Bakery $11 million verdict:

A jury has awarded Gibson’s Bakery and its owners $11 million in compensatory damages against Oberlin College, for libel, intentional interference with business, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The punitive damage hearing next week could add another $22 million, bringing the total to $33 million….

An obvious question, and one a lot of people have been asking, is whether the college has liability insurance to cover the verdict.

Based on court filings obtained by Legal Insurrection Foundation, it appears that the insurer, Lexington Insurance Company, is likely to disclaim coverage for the intentional torts which gave rise to the verdict.

The likelihood of refusal to cover the verdict was revealed in a May 1, 2019, Motion to Intervene (pdf.)(full embed at bottom of post) filed by Lexington Insurance Company.

The purpose of the motion, according to Lexington, was “for the limited purpose of submitting interrogatories to the jury in order to determine facts at issue in this action that would impact coverage under its policy.”

I then extensively quoted the Lexington Motion, which previewed how it would disclaim coverage and how the nature of the claims and verdict would be important:

Here is an excerpt from Lexington’s motion setting forth the nature of the insurance coverage (emphasis added):

Lexington issued a Commercial Umbrella Liability policy that potentially provides coverage to defendants Oberlin College aka Oberlin College and Conservatory (“Oberlin”) and Meredith Raimondo for certain damages in this action. Lexington seeks intervention in this action for the limited purpose of submitting interrogatories to the jury in order to determine facts at issue in this action that would impact coverage under its policy.

The Lexington policy does not provide coverage for “bodily injury” or “property damage” intentionally caused by defendants. While the Lexington policy potentially provides coverage in relation to “personal and advertising injury,” defined to include defamation and/or disparagement in certain circumstances, the Lexington policy excludes any such coverage if “personal and advertising injury” is caused “with the knowledge that the act would violate the rights of another … ,” or if the insured published material it knew to be false. Further, the Lexington policy provides coverage for punitive damages insurable by law, but only where the corresponding award of compensatory damages is also covered by the Lexington policy. In this action, plaintiffs Gibson Bros., Inc., Allyn Gibson, and David Gibson allege that defendants Oberlin and Ms. Raimondo published material that falsely characterized the bakery owned by plaintiffs (“Gibson’s”) as being a racist establishment. While such allegations potentially implicate “personal and advertising injury,” plaintiffs also alleged that the statements were published with malice, were intended to injure plaintiffs’ business reputation, and were part of a purported campaign to harm plaintiffs. If it is established that the defendants knew the alleged statements were false, or if the defendants knew their alleged acts would violate plaintiffs’ rights, the Lexington policy would exclude coverage for any resultant damage. Thus, Lexington seeks to intervene in order to submit jury interrogatories to determine the extent of the defendants’ knowledge in relation to the alleged publications.

Further, the Lexington policy provides coverage for punitive damages only when the punitive damages are assessed relative to covered compensatory damages. Here, plaintiffs seek punitive damages for the claims of libel, tortious interference with contract, tortious interference with business, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and trespass. Only the libel claim is potentially embraced by the Lexington policy. Thus, Lexington seeks to intervene in order to submit jury interrogatories and instructions to determine what punitive damages, if any, correspond to each cause of action.

The motion then sets forth Lexington’s inability to gain cooperation as to jury interrogatories from the college:

In particular, Lexington affirmatively requested on several occasions that the defendants submit jury interrogatories and instructions as proposed through this motion. Lexington also inquired as to when proposed jury interrogatories and instructions were due, and was informed on April 27, 2019 by defense counsel for Oberlin and Ms. Raimondo that there was currently no deadline set by the Court and that the deadline would probably be several weeks away. Lexington advised the defendants that Lexington understood the defendants would adopt Lexington’s request to submit jury interrogatories and instructions as outlined by Lexington. On April 27, 2019, the defendants responded that they would inform Lexington of their position on April 29, 2019. Defendants did not inform Lexington on April 29, 2019 as represented and, as such, Lexington is acting out of an abundance of caution in the form of this motion, as Lexington remains uncertain of defendants’ position, despite repeated communications and requests by Lexington.

The motion then sets forth the history of Lexington fighting with Oberlin College as to insurance coverage:

After tender of the lawsuit, Lexington informed the defendants that the Lexington policy did not respond to certain claims in the lawsuit. In particular, based on the claims that remain in the lawsuit, Lexington advised that the Lexington policy only potentially responds to the libel claim, . but that the Lexington policy is excess to other insurance provided through a commercial general liability policy issued by College Risk Retention Group, Inc. (“CRRG”) and an Educator’s Liability policy issued by United Educators (“UE”) in relation to the libel claim. Lexington further advised that the Lexington policy only embraces punitive damages when assessed relative to covered compensatory damages that implicate the Lexington layer of coverage. (Affidavit of Patrick Fredette (“Fredette Aff. ‘), ,r 3). In this regard, Lexington’s coverage, if any, is also excess to the UE policy not simply for any covered liability arising out of the libel claim, if any, but also any covered punitive damage award, subject to the $1 million cap in the UE policy for such damages. (Id.).

After quoting from the Lexington motion, I concluded;

Accordingly, based on Lexington’s court filing, it is likely that Oberlin College, should its post-trial motions and appeals fail, will have to pay out of pocket and then sue Lexington.

And so it has come to pass. I was alerted by a Legal Insurrection reader to a story in the local Chronicle-Telegram, Oberlin College sues 4 insurance companies over Gibsons Bakery settlement:

Oberlin College has sued four of its insurance providers in Lorain County Common Pleas Court to force them to cover the multimillion-dollar judgment that Gibson’s Bakery won against the college in 2019.

The college filed suit in April against Lexington Insurance Company of New York; United Educators Insurance of Bethesda, Maryland; Mount Hawley Insurance Company of Peoria, Illinois; and StarStone Specialty Insurance Company of Cincinnati.

Oberlin College claimed the insurance companies wrongfully refused “to honor promises they made in their respective policies to protect the interests of Oberlin College” and its former vice president and dean of students, Meredith Raimondo.

The case assigned to Judge Chris Cook, who was not the trial judge (that was John Miraldi). The Chronicle-Telegram quotes and paraphrase various aspects of the pleadings:

At the time of the events that led to the Gibsons lawsuit, Oberlin College said it had insurance policies providing “at least $75 million in total insurance coverage, which is more than enough to pay the underlying judgment and substantial unpaid defense costs” it incurred in the nearly six-year legal battle.

The college got $1 million from one of its insurance companies, but “also incurred millions of dollars in defense costs pursuing its appeals,” according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit did not give an exact dollar amount the college spent on legal fees.

Oberlin College’s insurance policies included $25 million in commercial umbrella liability coverage from Lexington; $10 million from Mount Hawley; $5 million from StarStone; and $25 million in overlapping educators legal liability coverage from United Educators, according to the lawsuit.

“These policies were intended to provide seamless coverage for lawsuits like the Gibson litigation,” according to the lawsuit. “Unfortunately, the defendant insurers have failed to pay a penny toward the $36,590,572.48 sum that Oberlin paid the Gibson plaintiffs. They also have failed to pay for the full cost of Oberlin’s appeals, which were pursued at the behest of the insurers in order to reduce their collective exposure.”

The insurers allegedly told the college that “some, if not all, of the damages” would be covered, according to the lawsuit.

Instead, Lexington and United Educators allegedly “engaged in a systematic, multi-year effort to avoid their coverage obligations by attempting to shift responsibility from the Gibson lawsuit to each other,” other insurance companies or the college, according to the lawsuit.

Lexington and United Educators also allegedly “both had numerous pretrial opportunities to resolve the underlying litigation for a small fraction of the eventual verdict” and could have settled the case for for less than $10 million on the eve of trial, according to the lawsuit. The college had even demanded the insurance companies do so, according to the lawsuit.

None of them did, according to the lawsuit, with Lexington failing to pay “a single cent” and Oberlin College facing “complete abandonment” by United Educators.

Mediation between the college and United Educators failed in early 2021, and the insurance company refuse to renew Oberlin College’s policy after a 34-year policyholder relationship, according to the lawsuit.

I am in the process of obtaining the case pleadings and motions and likely will have more details. Our six year journey continues, as we will now follow this insurance lawsuit.

Have you ever rooted for insurance companies ever? There’s a first for everything.

[Anti Federalist]

The Roach strikes again!

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Occam's Banana again.