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Oberlin College Hit With Maximum Punitive Damages
The civil judgement against Oberlin College for its SJW mau-mauing of Gibson’s Bakery just tripled from $11 million to $33 million. Thursday, the jury assessed the maximum punitive damages of $22 million against the school. Legal Insurrection has been all over this:
Daniel McGraw, our reporter in the courtroom, reports that in addition to the $11.2 million compensatory damages awarded last Friday, the jury awarded a total of $33 million in punitive damages, which will probably be reduced by the court to $22 million because of the state law cap at twice compensatory (it’s not an absolute cap, but probably will apply here). That brings the total damages to $33 million. We will have the breakdown soon. The jury also awarded attorney’s fees, to be determined by the judge.
Oberlin disregarded the first rule of holes – when you find you have dug yourself into a hole stop digging.
Published in Law
LOL. I love it.
A lot of the tuition those SJW’s ponied up for their Oberlin
educationindoctrination just went into cupcakes and pies….One of those times when you think the penalty does not suit the crime.
It should have been higher.
This makes me happy.
Does that make me a bad person?
“The jury also awarded attorney’s fees, to be determined by the judge.”
Golly I’m in a good mood all of a sudden!
If I’m ever back there, Gibson’s will be my first stop.
No; that means you are a person interested in justice.
While I don’t know civil law enough to claim any expertise, I suspect that an appeal only needs a couple more blanks to be filled in. It’ll be filed instantly. This is only the first round. (But it’s a great first round, eh?)
I wonder if Gibson’s ships to California?
I was going to by a shirt (to with my Covington Catholic), but the design is kind of plain. I think they will ship anywhere, but no chocolate this time of year.
Begin in 3-2-1, the appeal wars will.
I don’t know which Circuit has Ohio or how many Obama judges reign there. Interest accumulates and the award of attorney fees will bail the Gibsons out for a while. The appeal will be interesting.
That. Is. Awesome.
It will be interesting to see the damages calculation. The high amounts of damages to the individual plaintiffs are noteworthy.
An interesting aside is the report that Oberlin won on the intention infliction of emotional distress count.
Did the jury, instead, still include emotional distress damages and other damages relating to the actions of the mob that Oberlin encouraged? Consider:
Oberlin will likely try to make something of this, but shouldn’t prevail.
Not relevant. Will go through the Ohio courts and then to the US Supreme Court.
Sea,
Regards,
Jim
If someone just gave you $33 million, would you show up for work? At least the $11 million is tax-free, too.
Wow. The jury really thought the college’s behavior was bad.
I too assume there will be appeals, and therefore have been disappointed at some of the commentariat that have made it sound like Oberlin was going to have to cut a check immediately.
But, the success of an appeal by the college is not guaranteed, and will cost money (admittedly not much compared to a $33 million judgment). The prospect of spending a few hundred thousand dollars on appeals and possibly still needing to pay the $33 million plus attorney fees provides incentive to find an amount the Gibsons will accept to settle now.
I keep noticing that the “social justice warriors” say they’re all about the little guy, but almost always end up siding with the powerful and well connected. See, for additional examples, powerful and wealthy actors ganging up on Catholic high school students; wealthiest corporations on the planet (Google, Facebook, Twitter) against individual speakers and small not-for-profit organizations; etc.
I’ve only had one run in with the Social Justice Mob. They were screaming bloody murder about not having an anti-bullying code and bullied anyone who objected to it, even though the arguments against were well reasoned and polite. When their bullying was pointed out, they just doubled down. It was then I knew that the SJMs were immune to irony.
Bullying is another topic that has baffled me – the people who complain most loudly about bullying are often the biggest bullies around (and often are school administrators and government entities). I guess they must be immune to the irony.
I’ve just had a miserable experience at the airport and was sitting here fuming over the injustice of the universe in making me miss my flight. But then I saw this, and the sun is shining again. I am hoping against hope that Oberlin gets fined so big it hurts and other institutions take notice. The only thing that the Academy likes more than trumpeting their leftist bona fides is money.
I also keep remembering the admonition of my Civil Procedure professor (first year of law school):
“Appellants are losers.” If you are the person or entity filing the appeal, that means you lost. So you are starting out in a negative position.
Depends on what you think of work.
In the Town v. Gown trial, all the college employees are excluded from the jury. :).
Due to the active participation of Dean Raimondo, this is an outlier. If she is not at the protest, handing out flyers and acting like the protector of the protesters, do we have the same result?
Indeed.
The only penalty that I see as high enough is one that forces the college out of existence.
Speaking of missing the irony, Oberlin had the nerve to complain that they’ll be out of business in ten years due to running deficits (low enrollment) and this steep damages award. I call it “cosmic justice.”
I missed a flight that caused me to miss a lecture I was scheduled to give. The reason was, typically, a TSA moron who spent 20 minutes trying to get a Down’s syndrome kid to take his shoes off. Instead of taking the kid aside, he held up the entire line. It was a close call as to which was the more functional.