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After a Legal Fight, Oberlin Says It Will Pay $36.59M to a Local Bakery

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Re: After a Legal Fight, Oberlin Says It Will Pay $36.59M to a Local Bakery

#31

Post by lajamerr »

dmitrygr wrote: post #26
crhulls wrote: post #25

I am not all sympathetic to Oberlin, but this judgement is absurd. It is many many lifetimes of income for a small bakery. Even if they were forced into bankruptcy, this is beyond the pale. "The latest amount consists of about $5 million in compensatory damages, nearly $20 million in punitive damages, $6.5 million in attorney’s fees and almost $5 million in interest." This only contributes to our litigious society wh…

That is what punitive damages are - they are not required to be connected to the size of the damage, they are meant to punish the defendant for royally (in the judge's view) fucking up, and send a message to other similar defendants to not do such things And $5M in compensatory damages seems about right for 2 years of a successful small bakery

Honestly I'm not very keen on pinning blame/monetary responsibility on single individuals/companies to 'prevent/deter' unknown future crimes. We shouldn't be signaling with big punishments bigger than the crimes call for. We should carefully consider the crime based on the individual and how much punishment is appropriate for that individual to compensate the victim/deter that single individual/company from continuing that future behavior. Not to stop others.

Why should I get 30 years for a crime that should be 5 years because they want to send a signal. Make it fair and make it equal.

Edit: Apparently this is a unpopular opinion. All I am calling for is that punishment meets the crime. Not meets the crime and exceeds it in order to prevent unrelated parties from committing the same crime. They aren't my responsibility.

Re: After a Legal Fight, Oberlin Says It Will Pay $36.59M to a Local Bakery

#32

Post by unwise-exe »

lajamerr wrote: post #31
dmitrygr wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is what punitive damages are - they are not required to be connected to the size of the damage, they are meant to punish the defendant for royally (in the judge's view) fucking up, and send a message to other similar defendants to not do such things And $5M in compensatory damages seems about right for 2 years of a successful small bakery

Honestly I'm not very keen on pinning blame/monetary responsibility on single individuals/companies to 'prevent/deter' unknown future crimes. We shouldn't be signaling with big punishments bigger than the crimes call for. We should carefully consider the crime based on the individual and how much punishment is appropriate for that individual to compensate the victim/deter that single individual/company from continuin…

> We should carefully consider the crime based on the individual and how much punishment is appropriate for that individual to compensate the victim/deter that single individual/company from continuing that future behavior. Not to stop others.

I'd think that having your standard practice be to make sure it wasn't worth it would find the same amount as the threshhold for both deterring the current perpetrator and deterring others.

Re: After a Legal Fight, Oberlin Says It Will Pay $36.59M to a Local Bakery

#33

Post by jballer »

crhulls wrote: post #25

I am not all sympathetic to Oberlin, but this judgement is absurd. It is many many lifetimes of income for a small bakery. Even if they were forced into bankruptcy, this is beyond the pale. "The latest amount consists of about $5 million in compensatory damages, nearly $20 million in punitive damages, $6.5 million in attorney’s fees and almost $5 million in interest." This only contributes to our litigious society wh…

This reporting about the depths the Gibsons were hurled into, just to serve as scapegoats without any evidence of wrongdoing, might change your mind.

The activists perpetuating the boycott were right about one thing: this is about way more than a single event or a single venue. https://www.honestlypod.com/podcast/episode/e765b3b3/oberlin...

Re: After a Legal Fight, Oberlin Says It Will Pay $36.59M to a Local Bakery

#34

Post by lajamerr »

unwise-exe wrote: post #32
lajamerr wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I'm not very keen on pinning blame/monetary responsibility on single individuals/companies to 'prevent/deter' unknown future crimes. We shouldn't be signaling with big punishments bigger than the crimes call for. We should carefully consider the crime based on the individual and how much punishment is appropriate for that individual to compensate the victim/deter that single individual/company from continuin…

> We should carefully consider the crime based on the individual and how much punishment is appropriate for that individual to compensate the victim/deter that single individual/company from continuing that future behavior. Not to stop others. I'd think that having your standard practice be to make sure it wasn't worth it would find the same amount as the threshhold for both deterring the current perpetrator and dete…

There's a clear difference between deterring a individual and putting a amount so high it will get taglines so people will pay attention and think that could happen to them as well if they were to commit a similar crime and get caught. It's all about intentions.

And I don't want my government prosecuting people and giving them high sentences just to deter other people. It's barbaric behavior.

Like cutting the hand off a thief so others know what will happen if they get caught stealing.

Re: After a Legal Fight, Oberlin Says It Will Pay $36.59M to a Local Bakery

#35

Post by dehrmann »

jjeaff wrote: post #15
jononomo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oberlin drove the bakery out of business while knowing full well that the bakery did nothing wrong. The kid that got caught shoplifting plead guilty and he also outright stated that racism was not involved.

This doesn't necessarily go against your point, but I have seen far too many innocent people coerced into pleading guilty to actually believe someone is guilty based on a guilty plea.

True, but if you're a large institution making a public statement (this could be interpreted broadly) against a small business, you better be sure it's true. It's especially not worth it when the shoplifter was trying to use a fake ID.

Re: After a Legal Fight, Oberlin Says It Will Pay $36.59M to a Local Bakery

#36

Post by mannykannot »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #30
crhulls wrote: post #25

I am not all sympathetic to Oberlin, but this judgement is absurd. It is many many lifetimes of income for a small bakery. Even if they were forced into bankruptcy, this is beyond the pale. "The latest amount consists of about $5 million in compensatory damages, nearly $20 million in punitive damages, $6.5 million in attorney’s fees and almost $5 million in interest." This only contributes to our litigious society wh…

> This only contributes to our litigious society where lawyers get rich through shakedowns Even if the lawyers were to receive 100% of the payouts from these cases, we the public still benefit: the threat of these types of lawsuits prevents other similar abuses.

Indeed, and this is not in any way a shakedown. It is, in fact, an example of a victory over the mirror-image scenario, where a well-endowed entity rides roughshod over ordinary people by threatening to ruin them before, or even if, justice prevails.

Re: After a Legal Fight, Oberlin Says It Will Pay $36.59M to a Local Bakery

#37

Post by xyzzyz »

lajamerr wrote: post #31
dmitrygr wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is what punitive damages are - they are not required to be connected to the size of the damage, they are meant to punish the defendant for royally (in the judge's view) fucking up, and send a message to other similar defendants to not do such things And $5M in compensatory damages seems about right for 2 years of a successful small bakery

Honestly I'm not very keen on pinning blame/monetary responsibility on single individuals/companies to 'prevent/deter' unknown future crimes. We shouldn't be signaling with big punishments bigger than the crimes call for. We should carefully consider the crime based on the individual and how much punishment is appropriate for that individual to compensate the victim/deter that single individual/company from continuin…

Why would we not want to stop others? Why not consider a positive side effect of deterring others? Sorry, what are you saying here does not make any sense to me at all.

It seems like that you are suggesting that we could simply not punish people at all for first offense, as long as they can credibly promise that they won’t reoffend. After all, if they won’t reoffend, under what you say, there is no point in punishing them at all. Sure, this means that people will know that they can scot-free offend one time, and so many more will likely do, especially if the risk of being caught is relatively low, but you explicitly want to ignore that. This is crazy to me. No society ever worked like that.

Additionally, deterrence function is not “virtue signaling”, this is not what the term means.

Re: After a Legal Fight, Oberlin Says It Will Pay $36.59M to a Local Bakery

#38

Post by [deleted] »

crhulls wrote: post #25

I am not all sympathetic to Oberlin, but this judgement is absurd. It is many many lifetimes of income for a small bakery. Even if they were forced into bankruptcy, this is beyond the pale. "The latest amount consists of about $5 million in compensatory damages, nearly $20 million in punitive damages, $6.5 million in attorney’s fees and almost $5 million in interest." This only contributes to our litigious society wh…

[deleted]

Re: After a Legal Fight, Oberlin Says It Will Pay $36.59M to a Local Bakery

#39

Post by googlryas »

spamizbad wrote: post #6

Is there more to this story? I'm honestly pretty shocked by this. The college basically got into hot water for having its Dean show up at a protest holding a flyer.

That's what you would take away if you read Oberlin's take on the matter: https://www.oberlin.edu/news-and-events/bakery-litigation/10...

However, they don't mention any of the emails/texts that came out between administrators for some reason, which is what put the nail in the coffin for Oberlin. If you read the FAQ by the prosecution, you'll see that almost all of the fun details are in the private communications between administrators, not in what they publicly did: https://www.lawlion.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/UPDATED-F...

How Meredith Raimondo has a job lined up outside of Oberlin is beyond me. I doubt she's actually learned a lesson, especially because she isn't bearing any individual culpability, and I have to imagine she will just be a little bit more discreet while planning smear campaigns and tortious interference against family businesses.

Re: After a Legal Fight, Oberlin Says It Will Pay $36.59M to a Local Bakery

#40

Post by [deleted] »

crhulls wrote: post #25

I am not all sympathetic to Oberlin, but this judgement is absurd. It is many many lifetimes of income for a small bakery. Even if they were forced into bankruptcy, this is beyond the pale. "The latest amount consists of about $5 million in compensatory damages, nearly $20 million in punitive damages, $6.5 million in attorney’s fees and almost $5 million in interest." This only contributes to our litigious society wh…

[deleted]
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