Gibson’s Bakery v. Oberlin College

[GURPS]

Gibson’s Bakery Will Have to Wait To Collect: Ohio Supreme Court Grants Stay of Enforcement of Judgment Against Oberlin College​

This is a serious situation, because Oberlin College’s litigation stalling tactics combined with a continued college community boycott of Gibson’s Bakery (now approaching years), the bakery is on the verge of going out of business.


Bad news for the Gibsons. In a ruling that procedurally is not very surprising, the Ohio Supreme Court just granted the college’s motion for a stay.



It’s not procedurally surprising, because stays pending appeal are common, almost routine. The mystery was why the college didn’t seek it immediately, and waiting until the Gibsons attempted to collect on the bond. I would not read anything from this stay into how the Ohio Supreme Court will view the merits, or whether it even will hear the case.

What’s interesting is that three judges dissented from granting the stay: “Kennedy, Fischer, and DeWine, JJ., dissent.” That’s three of the seven justices. I don’t know what to read into that because I’m not sufficiently familiar with the court members. My gut tells me the court will hear the case because it has become so famous, but on the merits there’s really no reason for the court to take it.

 

[GURPS]

Will I Ever See the $36 Million Oberlin College Owes Me?​

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 donuts, 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.

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 turn off 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.

 

[GURPS]

Oberlin College “has initiated payment in full of the $36.59 million judgment in the Gibson’s Bakery case”​

Finally, Oberlin College stops fighting, and the future of Gibson’s Bakery looks brighter after six years of darkness.

 

[GURPS]

Finally, The Gibson’s Bakery Family Has Been Paid By Oberlin College​

The Gibsons have collected the over $36 million owed them. Sadly, David Gibson and “Grandpa” Allyn Gibson did not live to see this day. By stretching out the appeals Oberlin College waited them out, but the rest of the family survives. We wish the Gibson family well.

 

[GURPS]

The panic over the arrival of a risk management expert in this small college is that she may be working … wait for it … to lower the risk of lawsuits at the college. Oberlin, it appears, attracts lawsuits as much as liberals.

The students fear that she will create “risk aversion” that could chill future protests.

Indeed, some of us have written about Oberlin for years as a case study of why higher education is declining in America. The college has yielded to the mob in past controversies that have cost the school a fortune.

[clip]


So that brings us back to the student panic over the hiring of a campus risk manager. Rather than look at its own conduct and the lack of responsibility and leadership exercised by Oberlin College President Carmen Twillie Ambar and the Board of Trustees, the college is hiring someone to study what is abundantly clear: that the college is burning through a lot of money in what is little more than woke performance art. One wonders how many students could have been given free rides to the college with the amount of money Oberlin has paid in litigation and insurance.

For the student editors, they do not even want “risk” to be raised because “it seems unlikely that a college living in fear of litigation . . . will behave favorably toward activist efforts in the years to come.”

Risky business: Appearance of ‘risk’ manager sends Oberlin students into frenzy over the danger of ‘risk aversion’

Oberlin, it appears, attracts lawsuits as much as liberals.

thehill.com

 

[glhs837]

For the student editors, they do not even want “risk” to be raised because “it seems unlikely that a college living in fear of litigation . . . will behave favorably toward activist efforts in the years to come.”

Risky business: Appearance of ‘risk’ manager sends Oberlin students into frenzy over the danger of ‘risk aversion’

Oberlin, it appears, attracts lawsuits as much as liberals.

thehill.com

Never learn.......... Its not the colleges job to behave one way or the other towards activists efforts. Perhaps if the college had done that back in the day, things might have been different.

 

[SamSpade]

Don't start nuthin' - won't BE nuthin'.

Really can't sympathize with any group or organization that needlessly picks fights.
Sadly, it arises from some deep-seated idea they have that opposition to their opinions is a threat that must be confronted - violently, if necessary.

I've had co-workers from Communist countries and I've visited two - THIS is how they think. Your views and speech CANNOT be allowed, because it is a threat to the rest of us.

 

[vraiblonde]

I've had co-workers from Communist countries and I've visited two - THIS is how they think. Your views and speech CANNOT be allowed, because it is a threat to the rest of us.

And yet Democrat celebrities can launch violence-ridden attacks on anyone they don't like on Twitter, calling for beatings and death and even child rape, and nobody censors them. Then they turn around and whine that "misgendering" someone is violence and will kill all alphabet people.

Which is in itself hilarious because calling a man a man isn't misgendering him. Calling him a woman is.

 

[GURPS]

Oberlin College Sues Insurers For Refusing To Cover $36 Million It Paid Gibson’s Bakery For Defamation And Other Torts (Update)​

Four insurance companies have told the college to pound sand. Have you ever rooted for insurance companies ever? There’s a first for everything.



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 shoplifting.) The ensuing accusations by the college that the bakery had a long history of racial profiling led to a lawsuit, trial, appeals, and ultimately payment. We were there the whole way:

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: