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

nytimes.com

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

#141

Post by effingwewt »

MikePlacid wrote: post #125
Lazare wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. From wikipedia: > On Wednesday, November 9, 2016, an underage African-American Oberlin College student and Student Assistant Treasurer,[9] Jonathan Aladin (aka Elijah Aladin), attempted to purchase a bottle of wine using a fake identification card.[8] The store clerk, Allyn D. Gibson, a son and grandson of the owners,[6] rejected the fake ID. Gibson noticed that the student was concealing two other bottles of wi…

> That's not really an example of a "chase-and-detain policy", nor was it a "suspected shoplifter"; by the time anyone was chasing anyone else, it was a matter of assault. I was under the impression that punching and kicking turns shoplifting into a robbery, no?

Thus this part of OP's quote 'The police arrested the students, charging all three with assault and the shoplifter with robbery as well'.

Oberlin was in the wrong, as was the Assistant Dean of Students, yet there were no real repercussions.

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

#143

Post by mpweiher »

scarface74 wrote: post #66
atdrummond wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not what happened here at all.

> If you witness a crime you can arrest the criminal He did not say “if you witness a crime you can call the police”. I don’t want a society where any random yokel thinks he can detain someone.

Then you will have to essentially leave the civilised world:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen's_arrest#United_States

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

#144

Post by tptacek »

rayiner wrote: post #27
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…

The judgment is mostly punitive damages and legal fees. Which seem warranted. A university with a billion dollar endowment manufactured claims of racism to destroy a small business. It didn’t just hurt the bakery, but the community at large. Manufacturing racism for political ends is socially harmful conduct just like the other sorts of conduct that warrants punitive damages.

Punitive damages in this case were around 2x economic damages, which came out to around $12MM. Gibson's wasn't just a bakery; they also owned a bunch of rental property in the area, and those interests were also harmed. The award does not appear tied to Oberlin's "billion dollar endowment" and, as we can see from their statement, hasn't even touched it.

Later

Nope, I'm wrong: the total punitive damages awarded to the Gibson were closer to 1x economic damages --- Oberlin got to 36MM by appealing and putting themselves on the hook for an additional 6MM in legal fees.

Also, I should be saying "compensatory" and not "economic", since there's a bunch of compensatory damage categories that aren't economic.

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

#145

Post by tptacek »

rayiner wrote: post #138
tptacek wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have thought the same thing, a year ago. It's a low-effort provocation either way, though. The thread has nothing whatsoever to do with Saudi Arabia.

When someone points out a problem with healthcare in America, others always chime in with “we should have socialized healthcare like Sweden.” This is in the same thing, except the premise is that maybe Saudi Arabia and other Sharia law countries are on to something. The affluent, privileged Oberlin students profiled in the article don’t even feel shame about stealing from local small businesses. That suggests not onl…

When people make stupid comments in the other ideological direction, I flag them too. This stuff is beneath you --- or, it used to be.

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

#146

Post by alsaaro »

jerrya wrote: post #51

From the nytimes article, the judgment will be paid by Oberlin's insurance company, it will not come out of the endowment, they have not apologized, they are not accepting they were wrong, there have been no resignations. Meredith Raimondo, the Dean of Students at the time, who was passing out flyers and far more, nine months ago to accept a position as Vice President of Student Affairs at Oglethorpe University https…

One lesson potentially learned...

Oberlin and its students must comply with local "speech codes" or face being sued into non existence.

And people think "woke" political correctness is bad, at least the snowflakes use speech to counter speech, rather than courts.

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

#147

Post by googlryas »

alsaaro wrote: post #139

This judgement is problematic on so many fronts, most concerning is it chills free speech, and attaches popular moral precepts to political speech. Oberlin is now responsible for the speech of its adult students and now must censor them in a Ministry of Truth like role to avoid civil liability. Must they also censor researchers debunking the efficacy of drugs in trials causing financial harm to Big Pharma? Gibson's m…

Not at all. What Oberlin isn't allowed to do is the same thing it wasn't allowed to do before - help organize a boycott of a legitimate business based on libelous accusations. The students can still do whatever they want to the extent that the institution chooses to not punish them.

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

#148

Post by crackercrews »

alsaaro wrote: post #146
jerrya wrote: post #51

From the nytimes article, the judgment will be paid by Oberlin's insurance company, it will not come out of the endowment, they have not apologized, they are not accepting they were wrong, there have been no resignations. Meredith Raimondo, the Dean of Students at the time, who was passing out flyers and far more, nine months ago to accept a position as Vice President of Student Affairs at Oglethorpe University https…

One lesson potentially learned... Oberlin and its students must comply with local "speech codes" or face being sued into non existence. And people think "woke" political correctness is bad, at least the snowflakes use speech to counter speech, rather than courts.

"local speech codes" = not slandering? Pretty sure that applies everywhere.

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

#149

Post by tptacek »

googlryas wrote: post #147
alsaaro wrote: post #139

This judgement is problematic on so many fronts, most concerning is it chills free speech, and attaches popular moral precepts to political speech. Oberlin is now responsible for the speech of its adult students and now must censor them in a Ministry of Truth like role to avoid civil liability. Must they also censor researchers debunking the efficacy of drugs in trials causing financial harm to Big Pharma? Gibson's m…

Not at all. What Oberlin isn't allowed to do is the same thing it wasn't allowed to do before - help organize a boycott of a legitimate business based on libelous accusations. The students can still do whatever they want to the extent that the institution chooses to not punish them.

Oberlin can arrange a boycott of a business like Gibson's for being "racist" or "pro-carceral" or any of a dozen other woke reasons. What they can't do is publish false statements of actual fact, like the assertion that an employee of Gibson's assaulted a student.

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

#150

Post by woooooo »

tptacek wrote: post #133
jerrya wrote: post #51

From the nytimes article, the judgment will be paid by Oberlin's insurance company, it will not come out of the endowment, they have not apologized, they are not accepting they were wrong, there have been no resignations. Meredith Raimondo, the Dean of Students at the time, who was passing out flyers and far more, nine months ago to accept a position as Vice President of Student Affairs at Oglethorpe University https…

There is no requirement that Oberlin learn anything here. The law pretty severely limits the extent to which civil damages can be used to teach lessons, as we just learned from the Alex Jones case: punitive damages are capped, constitutionally, at some low multiple of economic damages. It is an enormous defamation award, regardless of how you feel about where it leaves Oberlin.

Maybe we could hold Oberlin to a higher standard than Alex Jones?

If their goal is to make a total joke of the movements they support, they're doing a bang-up job. If their goal us anything else, maybe they should try and learn something.

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