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.

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  1. Cato Rand Inactive
    Cato Rand
    @CatoRand

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    tigerlily (View Comment):

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    This makes me happy.

    Does that make me a bad person?

    Hell no! I hope this decision forces Oberlin into bankruptcy.

    I’d be happier if they reformed themselves and became liberal. I don’t like all the small colleges going out of business, leaving us with only the big ones.

    Yea, but losing one in a high profile way pour encourager les autres wouldn’t be so bad.

    • #61
  2. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    MichaelKennedy (View Comment):

    Mim526 (View Comment):
    And Miraldi was very careful in setting the bar pretty high on evidentiary rulings.

    I understand he did not allow the jury to see the notorious email to alumni trashing the verdict. And the jury.

    The content of the e-mail got to the jury during the punitive damages testimony phase. How? The plaintiff’s lawyers got one of the Oberlin defense witnesses to talk about it during that witness’s testimony. He started a line of questioning about the school’s reaction to the verdict, and it just sort of came out. Volunteered by an Obie administrator completely tone-deaf to the effect of the school’s distain for the jury would have. (The peasants should know their place, after all.)

    • #62
  3. Del Mar Dave Member
    Del Mar Dave
    @DelMarDave

    Yummy schadenfreude!

    • #63
  4. El Colonel Member
    El Colonel
    @El Colonel

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    This makes me happy.

    Does that make me a bad person?

     

    Yes.  Very bad.  I mean, like, really, really bad.   It’s not fair!

    Your happiness makes me feel uncomfortable.   I am disappointed, angry and filled with contempt.  I demand retribution. 

    You need to be unhappy so I can be happy.   That’s how it should be.

     

    • #64
  5. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Cato Rand (View Comment):

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    tigerlily (View Comment):

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    This makes me happy.

    Does that make me a bad person?

    Hell no! I hope this decision forces Oberlin into bankruptcy.

    I’d be happier if they reformed themselves and became liberal. I don’t like all the small colleges going out of business, leaving us with only the big ones.

    Yea, but losing one in a high profile way pour encourager les autres wouldn’t be so bad.

    The message will be delivered to the others when they get their next premium notices from their insurance companies.

    • #65
  6. Cato Rand Inactive
    Cato Rand
    @CatoRand

    Percival (View Comment):

    Cato Rand (View Comment):

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    tigerlily (View Comment):

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    This makes me happy.

    Does that make me a bad person?

    Hell no! I hope this decision forces Oberlin into bankruptcy.

    I’d be happier if they reformed themselves and became liberal. I don’t like all the small colleges going out of business, leaving us with only the big ones.

    Yea, but losing one in a high profile way pour encourager les autres wouldn’t be so bad.

    The message will be delivered to the others when they get their next premium notices from their insurance companies.

    I am confident this wasn’t insured.  If it was insured, it would have been settled.  Only a self-righteous college administrator could have been this foolish.  An insurance company would have cut its losses long ago.

    • #66
  7. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    Cato Rand (View Comment):
    I am confident this wasn’t insured. If it was insured, it would have been settled. Only a self-righteous college administrator could have been this foolish. An insurance company would have cut its losses long ago.

    Apparently it is not insured, but the self-righteous college administrators who refused to settle thought it was insured. Oberlin has liability insurance, but the insurance company is claiming the liability insurance does not cover intentional torts, and that this case falls under that category.

    Whom the  gods would destroy they first make mad.

    • #67
  8. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Seawriter (View Comment):

    Cato Rand (View Comment):
    I am confident this wasn’t insured. If it was insured, it would have been settled. Only a self-righteous college administrator could have been this foolish. An insurance company would have cut its losses long ago.

    Apparently it is not insured, but the self-righteous college administrators who refused to settle thought it was insured. Oberlin has liability insurance, but the insurance company is claiming the liability insurance does not cover intentional torts, and that this case falls under that category.

    Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.

    There will be a court fight over that. If the insurance company wins, liability insurance premiums still go up. If the insurance company loses, liability insurance premiums go way up.

    • #68
  9. JuliaBlaschke Lincoln
    JuliaBlaschke
    @JuliaBlaschke

    In a world that seems completely crazy, it is so refreshing to see sanity prevail.

    • #69
  10. JuliaBlaschke Lincoln
    JuliaBlaschke
    @JuliaBlaschke

    • #70
  11. Suspira Member
    Suspira
    @Suspira

    Gossamer Cat (View Comment):

    AUMom (View Comment):
    If the school closes, what about the folks who work there? The maintenance workers, the cooks, the lab assistants, the professors who actually taught the subjects they were hired to teach. While I don’t believe the injustice that was done to the bakery should go unpunished or not be a warning to other institutions, there will be innocents hurt. I wish that were not the case.

    Oberlin also didn’t seem to mind putting the bakery out of business. Turn about is fair play. But I very much doubt they will go down over this. Would be delicious if they had to lay off all their diversity staff.

    Does anyone doubt that diversity officials will be the last to go?

    • #71
  12. Cato Rand Inactive
    Cato Rand
    @CatoRand

    Percival (View Comment):

    Seawriter (View Comment):

    Cato Rand (View Comment):
    I am confident this wasn’t insured. If it was insured, it would have been settled. Only a self-righteous college administrator could have been this foolish. An insurance company would have cut its losses long ago.

    Apparently it is not insured, but the self-righteous college administrators who refused to settle thought it was insured. Oberlin has liability insurance, but the insurance company is claiming the liability insurance does not cover intentional torts, and that this case falls under that category.

    Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.

    There will be a court fight over that. If the insurance company wins, liability insurance premiums still go up. If the insurance company loses, liability insurance premiums go way up.

    Yea, and I can’t speak to the compensatory damages but it’s exceedingly unlikely the punitives are insured.

    • #72
  13. Scott Wilmot Member
    Scott Wilmot
    @ScottWilmot

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    I played football at Denison in the late 1980’s. Oberlin was in our conference. At that time, Oberlin’s entire student body was gay, except for the football team. They prided themselves on being WAY out on the left. A fried of mine who went there for a year said this is not much of an exaggeration.

    Was Oberlin as odd in the late ’70’s as it was 10 years later?

    Yes, Oberlin was odd – very leftist with a significant homosexual population. My faculty adviser my first semester was the Dean of Students – he was as queer as a three dollar bill and was a homosexual predator – he went after my roommate. The saying around campus was “beware the lean dangler of Dean Langler”. 

    I played on the college tennis team and the locker room was always full of predators – freaks who would gawk and stare. For about a month there was one predator who would phone my dorm at all hours of the night trying to make advances. Campus security would do nothing, so I took matters into my own hands and from that point on had no more trouble. One probably couldn’t do that today. Oberlin had a lot to offer – but they’ve gone way off the deep end.

    • #73
  14. Roderic Fabian Coolidge
    Roderic Fabian
    @rhfabian

    Skyler (View Comment):

    In the Town v. Gown trial, all the college employees are excluded from the jury. :).

    I read somewhere that the jurors were not from Oberlin, so it wasn’t so much a town v gown thing.

    • #74
  15. Clifford A. Brown Member
    Clifford A. Brown
    @CliffordBrown

    The problem with the first rule of holes is that sometimes people think they are chasing a gold vein.

    Shot. Priceless screen shot from the Oberlin College Twitter account.

    Chaser. [Is Harvard racist against both Asian students and successful black men?]

     

    • #75
  16. Boss Mongo Member
    Boss Mongo
    @BossMongo

    Clifford A. Brown (View Comment):

    The problem with the first rule of holes is that sometimes people think they are chasing a gold vein.

    Shot. Priceless screen shot from the Oberlin College Twitter account.

    Chaser. [Is Harvard racist against both Asian students and successful black men?]

     

    Question: If I’m such an obvious and grotesque white supremacist, why am I so proud of and impressed by Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan?  And why am I so assed up at Harvard?

    • #76
  17. Doctor Robert Member
    Doctor Robert
    @DoctorRobert

    tigerlily (View Comment):
    Hell no! I hope this decision forces Oberlin into bankruptcy.

    Not gonna happen.

    From Oberlin’s website: “Like most private liberal arts schools, the endowment is the financial cornerstone of the College. Nearly all of Oberlin’s 1,700 endowed funds are invested within the General Investment Pool. The College’s General Investment Pool was $887.0 million at June 30, 2018, versus $819.9 million at June 30, 2017, a $67.1 million increase.”

    $33 million is pocket change for these leftist thugs.  They won’t even notice it.

    • #77
  18. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Doctor Robert (View Comment):
    The College’s General Investment Pool was $887.0 million at June 30, 2018, versus $819.9 million at June 30, 2017, a $67.1 million increase.”

    They should have compared with November 7, 2016.

    • #78
  19. Cato Rand Inactive
    Cato Rand
    @CatoRand

    Scott Wilmot (View Comment):

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    I played football at Denison in the late 1980’s. Oberlin was in our conference. At that time, Oberlin’s entire student body was gay, except for the football team. They prided themselves on being WAY out on the left. A fried of mine who went there for a year said this is not much of an exaggeration.

    Was Oberlin as odd in the late ’70’s as it was 10 years later?

    Yes, Oberlin was odd – very leftist with a significant homosexual population. My faculty adviser my first semester was the Dean of Students – he was as queer as a three dollar bill and was a homosexual predator – he went after my roommate. The saying around campus was “beware the lean dangler of Dean Langler”.

    I played on the college tennis team and the locker room was always full of predators – freaks who would gawk and stare. For about a month there was one predator who would phone my dorm at all hours of the night trying to make advances. Campus security would do nothing, so I took matters into my own hands and from that point on had no more trouble. One probably couldn’t do that today. Oberlin had a lot to offer – but they’ve gone way off the deep end.

    Wow.  You musta been a piece ‘o work.  Did ya give the faggot a whoopin’?

    • #79
  20. Boss Mongo Member
    Boss Mongo
    @BossMongo

    Cato Rand (View Comment):
    Wow. You musta been a piece ‘o work. Did ya give the faggot a whoopin’?

    Methinks the lady doth protest too much.

    • #80
  21. CarolJoy, Above Top Secret Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret
    @CarolJoy

    Gossamer Cat (View Comment):

    Full Size Tabby (View Comment):

    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.

    The appreciation of ironical activities  involves possessing a sense of humor.

    Which I can’t find anywhere on the Left.

    • #81
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