Oberlin College in Ohio has accrued more than $4 million in interest after refusing to pay a local family-run bakery in Ohio more than $30 million in libel damages in connection with spurious racial allegations brought in 2016.
Gibson's Bakery was awarded $31.6 million in July 2019 after students and a college administrator were found guilty of slandering the university as "racist" after an incident with three Black students by a bakery employee. The judgment is now worth more than $36 million, according to The Chronicle, since the school accrued interest of $4,300 per day for more than 1,000 days while it stayed unpaid. As a consequence, the judgment has grown to a value of well over $36 million.
An ex-dean at the institution is to responsible for the harm caused by false accusations of racism. When a Black Oberlin student was suspected of stealing wine bottles, Allyn Gibson, the son and grandson of David Gibson, and Allyn Gibson, the owner of Gibson's Bakery and Food Mart, followed and beat him. The firm was co-owned by David and Allyn Gibson.
Due to the fact that two other black students at Oberlin College were involved in the violent altercation, racial profiling accusations were raised.
According to the documentation in the case, all three students were held and ultimately pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges and read statements in which they indicated that Gibson's actions were not motivated by prejudice.
Oberlin students were outraged over a shoplifting incident that occurred the day after Donald Trump was elected president. Several pupils said that the Gibsons had singled out the African-American kids because of their race.
In 2017, Gibson's Bakery sued Oberlin Institution, claiming that the college defamed them and caused financial harm to their business.
In the wake of student protests, school administrators decided to stop ordering food from the bakery. Fox News Digital reports that the Oberlin College Student Senate decided to pass a resolution denouncing the bakery's owners for racism. Members of the school's community were then provided a copy of this resolution.
Oberlin College vice president and dean of students Meredith Raimondo distributed posters claiming the bakery was a RACIST institution with a LONG HISTORY of RACE PROFILING and DISCRIMINATION, according to court filings.
College resources were reportedly used to print the flyers, as well as to purchase food and other supplies for the protestors, according to court filings
In the end, a jury found Raimondo and the school liable for slander. Additional damages were awarded to David Gibson's son, who has now gone away, as well as to the college for causing mental anguish to the owner, David Gibson, who has since died. Both of these occurrences took place prior to the demise of David Gibson.
It was originally agreed that the bakery should receive $44 million in damages, but Lorain County Common Pleas Judge John Miraldi later reduced the sum to $25 million." According to the court's order, Oberlin must pay the bakery an additional $6.5 million in legal costs in 2019.
To avoid a lengthy legal battle, the Gibson family has asked Oberlin to pay all $36 million in damages and interest, including almost $4.1 million in legal fees. After the Gibson family requested that the payment be discontinued, this is the result.
Legal counsel for the bakery filed petition with the Ohio Supreme Court in opposition to Oberlin's move to halt the payment at the end of June.
As reported by TMZ, the Gibsons' lawyers claimed in a petition filed last month that they had followed all the necessary steps to legally execute a jury verdict and Judge Miraldi's 2019 judgment. The Chronicle provided the source for this information.
According to a news source, it's not clear when the state's top court will hear both sides of the case.
Any comments from Oberlin College were directed to a web page on their website that documented the most recent developments in the inquiry into this event, according to a spokeswoman. Most recently, an announcement was made on June 1 by Ohio State University that it had appealed the decision to the Ohio Supreme Court in May and had received support from various organizations, including the Ohio Chamber of Commerce; NAACP; and the Reporter's Committee for Freedom of the Press, among others.
The preceding is a summary of an article that originally appeared on The Daily Cable.
