Oberlin and defamation suit interest

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Still haven’t seen any evidence this is hurting Oberlin in terms of applications, ranking, employment for graduates, etc.

Nor its endowment which surpassed 1 billion in 2021--very healthy for a small liberal arts college.

So they have plenty of money with which to pay up. Good to know.

Actually their school paper reported that they were cutting costs due to fiscal constraints. Given the many covenants on spending endowment funds I’m curious how they’ll pay the settlement.

Ah well. Thoughts and prayers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Ohio Supreme Court refused to hear Oberlin's appeal, and the college owes $36 million to the Gibsons. The college has still not admitted they or their administrators did any thing wrong, and may choose to try to appeal to federal court in their continuing effort to exhaust the resources of the Gibson family.

The $36 million doesn’t include Oberlin’s own legal fees. The total cost is probably more than half of the college’s total annual budget. It’s amazing that the college has chosen this path when an apology early on would have made the case go away.

https://www.cleveland.com/news/2022/08/ohio-supreme-court-rejects-oberlin-colleges-appeal-of-36-million-defamation-verdict.html

Here’s a few articles from “National” sources for those who want to say it’s a “non-story:”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/court-wont-hear-appeal-in-oberlin-college-25m-judgment/2022/08/30/42de1850-288c-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html


https://www.cbsnews.com/news/oberlin-court-wont-hear-appeal-in-25-million-judgment/

Oberlin’s insurance carrier paid the legal fees.

Cite for this? Last I saw, Oberlin’s insurance carrier is disclaiming liability and the Board was making the calls on the litigation. Error and Omissions policies don’t cover intentional torts.

One of Oberlin’s carriers, Lexington, filed a motion to intervene in 2019 that indicated that it and/or one of the other carriers was providing a defense, and seeking to address certain issues related to indemnity coverage. Modern liability policies, particularly those obtained by sophisticated entities, typically include some kind of final adjudication requirement in the intentional conduct exclusion that means the insurer has to provide a defense unless and until there is a formal determination or legal admission of intentional conduct.

As for Oberlin controlling the defense, given the nature of the claim and the likely coverage defenses, most likely Oberlin has a right to independent counsel based on a potential of conflict of interest between the insurer and the insured. In that case, Oberlin would be entitled to control the defense while the insurer would pay the bills.

You’re making assumptions. Lexington’s intervention didn’t say that other insurers were providing the defense. Lexington just made the claim that the Lexington policy was excess to two other general insurance policies, and from the filing, it appears that there is some dispute about which insurer is responsible for coverage. I’ve yet to see any evidence that those policies are paying for this litigation.

In any case, it’s moot at this point — the case is done, and there *was* a finding of intentional conduct (unless Oberlin intends to try to appeal to the US Supreme Court, which is a long shot, but something I could see them do, based on their record of seeking delay at any cost). The bolded was exactly Lexington’s point in their intervention — their coverage doesn’t include damages resulting from intentional defamatory statements and malicious acts, much less punitive damages arising from these things.

Oberlin’s handling of this case is the exact opposite of everything I’ve tried to teach my kids. If you’ve made a mistake, admit it, apologize, and try to make it right. If you try to deny responsibility, you just delay the inevitable and make an even bigger mess. The Oberlin leadership should not be in charge of educating young people.

https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/06/exclusive-oberlin-college-insurer-likely-to-reject-coverage-for-gibson-bakery-11-million-verdict/amp/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Ohio Supreme Court refused to hear Oberlin's appeal, and the college owes $36 million to the Gibsons. The college has still not admitted they or their administrators did any thing wrong, and may choose to try to appeal to federal court in their continuing effort to exhaust the resources of the Gibson family.

The $36 million doesn’t include Oberlin’s own legal fees. The total cost is probably more than half of the college’s total annual budget. It’s amazing that the college has chosen this path when an apology early on would have made the case go away.

https://www.cleveland.com/news/2022/08/ohio-supreme-court-rejects-oberlin-colleges-appeal-of-36-million-defamation-verdict.html

Here’s a few articles from “National” sources for those who want to say it’s a “non-story:”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/court-wont-hear-appeal-in-oberlin-college-25m-judgment/2022/08/30/42de1850-288c-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html


https://www.cbsnews.com/news/oberlin-court-wont-hear-appeal-in-25-million-judgment/

Oberlin’s insurance carrier paid the legal fees.

Cite for this? Last I saw, Oberlin’s insurance carrier is disclaiming liability and the Board was making the calls on the litigation. Error and Omissions policies don’t cover intentional torts.

One of Oberlin’s carriers, Lexington, filed a motion to intervene in 2019 that indicated that it and/or one of the other carriers was providing a defense, and seeking to address certain issues related to indemnity coverage. Modern liability policies, particularly those obtained by sophisticated entities, typically include some kind of final adjudication requirement in the intentional conduct exclusion that means the insurer has to provide a defense unless and until there is a formal determination or legal admission of intentional conduct.

As for Oberlin controlling the defense, given the nature of the claim and the likely coverage defenses, most likely Oberlin has a right to independent counsel based on a potential of conflict of interest between the insurer and the insured. In that case, Oberlin would be entitled to control the defense while the insurer would pay the bills.

You’re making assumptions. Lexington’s intervention didn’t say that other insurers were providing the defense. Lexington just made the claim that the Lexington policy was excess to two other general insurance policies, and from the filing, it appears that there is some dispute about which insurer is responsible for coverage. I’ve yet to see any evidence that those policies are paying for this litigation.

In any case, it’s moot at this point — the case is done, and there *was* a finding of intentional conduct (unless Oberlin intends to try to appeal to the US Supreme Court, which is a long shot, but something I could see them do, based on their record of seeking delay at any cost). The bolded was exactly Lexington’s point in their intervention — their coverage doesn’t include damages resulting from intentional defamatory statements and malicious acts, much less punitive damages arising from these things.

Oberlin’s handling of this case is the exact opposite of everything I’ve tried to teach my kids. If you’ve made a mistake, admit it, apologize, and try to make it right. If you try to deny responsibility, you just delay the inevitable and make an even bigger mess. The Oberlin leadership should not be in charge of educating young people.

https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/06/exclusive-oberlin-college-insurer-likely-to-reject-coverage-for-gibson-bakery-11-million-verdict/amp/

DP. I could not agree more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Ohio Supreme Court refused to hear Oberlin's appeal, and the college owes $36 million to the Gibsons. The college has still not admitted they or their administrators did any thing wrong, and may choose to try to appeal to federal court in their continuing effort to exhaust the resources of the Gibson family.

The $36 million doesn’t include Oberlin’s own legal fees. The total cost is probably more than half of the college’s total annual budget. It’s amazing that the college has chosen this path when an apology early on would have made the case go away.

https://www.cleveland.com/news/2022/08/ohio-supreme-court-rejects-oberlin-colleges-appeal-of-36-million-defamation-verdict.html

Here’s a few articles from “National” sources for those who want to say it’s a “non-story:”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/court-wont-hear-appeal-in-oberlin-college-25m-judgment/2022/08/30/42de1850-288c-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html


https://www.cbsnews.com/news/oberlin-court-wont-hear-appeal-in-25-million-judgment/

Oberlin’s insurance carrier paid the legal fees.

Cite for this? Last I saw, Oberlin’s insurance carrier is disclaiming liability and the Board was making the calls on the litigation. Error and Omissions policies don’t cover intentional torts.

One of Oberlin’s carriers, Lexington, filed a motion to intervene in 2019 that indicated that it and/or one of the other carriers was providing a defense, and seeking to address certain issues related to indemnity coverage. Modern liability policies, particularly those obtained by sophisticated entities, typically include some kind of final adjudication requirement in the intentional conduct exclusion that means the insurer has to provide a defense unless and until there is a formal determination or legal admission of intentional conduct.

As for Oberlin controlling the defense, given the nature of the claim and the likely coverage defenses, most likely Oberlin has a right to independent counsel based on a potential of conflict of interest between the insurer and the insured. In that case, Oberlin would be entitled to control the defense while the insurer would pay the bills.

You’re making assumptions. Lexington’s intervention didn’t say that other insurers were providing the defense. Lexington just made the claim that the Lexington policy was excess to two other general insurance policies, and from the filing, it appears that there is some dispute about which insurer is responsible for coverage. I’ve yet to see any evidence that those policies are paying for this litigation.

In any case, it’s moot at this point — the case is done, and there *was* a finding of intentional conduct (unless Oberlin intends to try to appeal to the US Supreme Court, which is a long shot, but something I could see them do, based on their record of seeking delay at any cost). The bolded was exactly Lexington’s point in their intervention — their coverage doesn’t include damages resulting from intentional defamatory statements and malicious acts, much less punitive damages arising from these things.

Oberlin’s handling of this case is the exact opposite of everything I’ve tried to teach my kids. If you’ve made a mistake, admit it, apologize, and try to make it right. If you try to deny responsibility, you just delay the inevitable and make an even bigger mess. The Oberlin leadership should not be in charge of educating young people.

https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/06/exclusive-oberlin-college-insurer-likely-to-reject-coverage-for-gibson-bakery-11-million-verdict/amp/

If the carriers had grounds to wholly deny coverage, they would not have needed to move to intervene to get interrogatories on coverage-related issues. Because they recognized at least the possibility of coverage depending into the answers to those interrogatories, the duty to defend was triggered.

[Anonymous]

That doesn’t follow as the intervention related to indemnity obligations

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That doesn’t follow as the intervention related to indemnity obligations

Defense and indemnity are separate things under liability policies.

[Anonymous]

From the WSJ today:
Every year as Labor Day approaches, I think about meeting a new group of interested, occasionally brilliant students. And then I remember why I quit Oberlin College: deans.
This week the Ohio Supreme Court gave me 36 million reminders. It declined to take up Oberlin’s final appeal of a massive civil judgment against the school for defamation and tortious interference against the Gibson family and the 137-year-old Gibson’s Bakery.
The case began when an Oberlin student attempted to shoplift some wine, but the dean of students, Meredith Raimondo, along with administration underlings and colleagues, really drove this $36 million train.
On Nov. 9, 2016, Allyn Gibson, who is white, caught Jonathan Aladin, who is black, trying to buy a bottle of wine with a fake ID while hiding two more bottles under his shirt. Mr. Gibson tried to take a photo of Mr. Aladin, who grabbed the phone and fled, with Mr. Gibson following. Outside the store they tussled, with Mr. Gibson getting the worst of it especially after two of Mr. Aladin’s friends joined in. Bodycam footage from a few minutes later shows Mr. Aladin asking an Oberlin police officer why he and his friends, who were also black, were being arrested and not Mr. Gibson. “Well,” the officer responds reasonably, “when we got here, you all were on top of him, whaling on him.”
Town-gown conflicts have arisen for centuries over students stealing from and brawling with townies. Shoplifting by Oberlin students was a longstanding problem. What was shocking was the way Dean Raimondo and her colleagues whipped up student anger, helped organize protests in front of the store, tried to destroy Gibson’s through formal and informal boycotts, and ruthlessly defamed the family as racist in speech and print.
As Assistant Dean of Students Antoinette Myers texted Ms. Raimondo from the criminal trial where Mr. Aladin and his friends pleaded guilty to attempted theft, aggravated trespassing and underage purchase of alcohol: “I hope we rain fire and brimstone on that store.” All three defendants read statements in court acknowledging that they hadn’t been targeted for their race.
Ms. Raimondo and her army of deans, associate deans, assistant deans and the occasional professor acted not as educators but more like old-fashioned ward bosses—organizing constituents, trumping up grievances, and pointing them anywhere but the administration building. The way administrative bloat in universities has driven up tuition costs has often been pointed out, but Gibson’s Bakery v. Oberlin College points to another cost that will be borne by students, parents and donors: bureaucratic idiocy. (Oberlin currently costs a little over $62,000 a year, plus room, board and books.)
In 1946, W.H. Auden delivered the Phi Beta Kappa poem to Harvard College’s graduating class. It ended with a “Hermetic Decalogue,” rules for humanist followers of the playful Hermes as opposed to the officious followers of Apollo. Auden’s 10 commandments begin:
Thou shalt not do as the dean pleases,
Thou shalt not write thy doctor’s thesis
On education,
Thou shalt not worship projects nor
Shalt thou or thine bow down before
Administration.
That’s why I’m not going back to school: illiberal deans.
Mr. Socher is editor of the Jewish Review of Books, author of “Liberal and Illiberal Arts: Essays (Mostly Jewish)” and a former professor of Jewish studies at Oberlin College.

[Anonymous]

Wow. Amazing essay. Anyone actually defending Oberlin’s sickening actions here needs their head examined.

[Anonymous]

I would really question the morals/values of anyone who has chosen to attend Oberlin since 2016.

[Anonymous]

The school needs to pay and to acknowledge their total failure here. It’s become ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anyone read the piece written by the widow of the bakery owner? She makes the school look awful. Shame on them. They are a bunch of bullies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would really question the morals/values of anyone who has chosen to attend Oberlin since 2016.

I would too.

[Anonymous]

What I find astounding is that anyone wanted to employ Raimondo after this appalling behavior. But I guess there are other schools out there on the same "mission."

[Anonymous]

Who cares about jobs or admissions or any of that unrelated stuff. What the school did was wrong, plain and simple. Why can’t people acknowledges that? Why is about the tangential issues?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What I find astounding is that anyone wanted to employ Raimondo after this appalling behavior. But I guess there are other schools out there on the same "mission."

She got a promotion when she moved to Oglethorp.