From what I can see, the storekeeper chased the shoplifter outside and got him in a choke hold. That seems sort of old school, and maybe the way they handled it in 1885. It certainly isn’t racist, but most people these days would be afraid to do it to a black shoplifter. Also, employees of a large corporation probably wouldn’t take that risk.
Apparently, then the two girls with the shoplifter kicked the storekeeper. Then the storekeeper was knocked to the ground with the 3 of them beating and kicking him.The police arrested the 3 kids and charged them with attempted robbery due to the violence. They plead guilty to attempted theft.
Now it seems to me that the students and faculty at Oberlin could find a better cause than shoplifters’ rights.
Raimondo represents the college and the college authorized her to act as a representative of the college. If no employee ever represented the college, the college would only be a collection of buildings and the only things it could be sued for would be slip and falls on campus. She’s management. If a Walmart employee hits someone in a Walmart store, the victim is going to sue Walmart and Walmart can’t claim “Well, the employee was not authorized to hit customers.” Doesn’t matter. Anything an employee does as a representative is going to fall back on the college.
Tenure doesn’t prevent employees from being fired for any reason, just for protected reasons I don’t think the dean of students has tenure, but even if she does, she could be fired for misconduct, for tortuous acts. If she has tenure it is probably for a teaching position she might have had, not for her administrative position.
I think the worst evidence was the pizza receipt marked “for the Protests.” The college supported the protests.
Not yet, and just because the insurer says there is no coverage doesn’t make it so. So far the insurer has only said it is looking into denying coverage of some of the claims and that’s why it wanted the jury to detail which amounts were for which claims.
There is also another insurance policy:
(the underlining is mine)
Many insurers decline coverage when the claim is first presented and Lexington hasn’t declined coverage but that is what is speculated by Legal Insurrection Foundation. Just a supposition based on the intervention (by a non party) filed.
I think the insurers will pay some of the claims. The court did not let Lexington file the jury interrogatories, so Oberlin will be fighting with this insurer too.
@#180 In the new Kafkaesque world of Soros bought district attorneys a prosecution for simple shoplifting (without the elements of battery) may become a rarity.
“(Raimondo) probably has tenure, and could not be fired.”
Tenure does not protect you from getting fired bar none. If your actions are aggregious enough, you certainly CAN get fired.
However, Raimondo may never have had tenure. She joined the faculty in a newly-formed department (Comparative American Studies), and seemed to move into admin. within about 10 years time (maybe even less). She might have some research papers out there, but that doesn’t guarantee you tenure either. In contrast to other faculty members of that deparment, Raimondo’s bio (CV) doesn’t really describe much about her academic work other than some teaching awards. The terminal degree for many university and college administrators would be a PhD; however, most PhD’s - and many in a university or college setting - aren’t tenured or tenure track.
As an officer of the university - and particularly as the dean of students - Raimondo was on the hook for responsible behavior. It’s possible to advocate for your students w/o participating in deliberate falsehoods, and of course most grownups would wish to set a good example for their young adult students, rather than “unleash” them for some nefarious purpose or other.
This case was about facts. And the facts seemed not only to support Gibson’s position, they also revealed a deliberate smear campaign. THAT is why Oberlin and its dean of students were slammed with tens of millions in compensatory and punitive damages.
^^the tenure discussion is irrelevant. Tenure is an academic appointment. OTOH, Dean of Student is not an academic appointment, so she could easily be removed from the job as an Officer of the College, and go back to teaching classes (assuming she has tenure).
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
So we now have about 3 or 4 posters debating minutiae and/or OT items. This site is not a debate society, so please feel free to express you PoV, defend once if needed, and then let it go. You will not change anybody’s mind.
Here is a link to the Oberlin Review’s take on punitive awards and the case in general. It is an area of concern when the majority of perspectives support a single party in any litigation with this many technical elements. The Forbes writer on the topic (an Oberlin alum) is a notable dissenter on the verdict and awards. There are few other like minded writers evidenced in recent reportage.
That is interesting to see the school newspaper’s take on it. What they were printing earlier on was probably even more against the racist bakery.
It was presented that the store owner’s son attacked the shoplifter and the minority students attacked in self defense. However, legally the store owner had the right to detain a shoplifter.
Were the two females simply attempting to liberate the male from an unlawful attempted detention?
It’s curious that in an age of ubiquitous digital image collection and crowd sourcing via social media that the identity of the fourth (4th) assailant is yet to be determined.
There are significant issues issues with a ruling which seems to hold a college responsible for the actions of its employees and students. Some of those issues involve first amendment claims, some involve academic freedom, some involve general legal concepts like respondeat superior (the doctrine that holds an employer may be responsible for the actions of its agent). Oliver Wendell Holmes said a long time ago that bad facts make bad law, and certainly the case can be made that that is what happened here. For this reason, immense pressure is going to be brought to bear on Oberlin to maintain this case, and try to at least get some clarity from an appellate court if not the Ohio Supreme Court on the type of responsibility being placed on colleges here.
On the other hand, the very egregiousness of the facts as found by the jury, and the utter tone deafness and arrogance expressed in the manner in which the college approached both this issue and the law suit had to be answered. The idea that a college can encourage and assist in student protests and activities which are clearly defamatory and harmful, and then turn around and say they bear no responsibility is ludicrous on its face. If I lie to neighbor A and tell him that I saw neighbor B kiss neighbor A’s 14 year old daughter, and then hand him a baseball bat, it is very unlikely that the courts would be sympathetic to my argument that I wasn’t the one who cracked neighbor B’s skull. This is kind of like that.
Many of the commentators who write in criticism of the verdict flat out ignore the actions taken by the college, through its employees, in support of the students in favor of high minded appeals to the first amendment and veiled allegations of racism. This is close enough for government work when you are writing articles, I guess. But a jury hears a lot, from both sides. Call it what you will, but there was competent evidence presented that the school paid for pizza and gloves for the protesters, that they tried to pressure Gibson’s into dropping the charges and not reporting “first time” shop lifters, that Raimando was leading the protests, that she felt it was her job to “support” the protesters and that she at least expressed an ability to somewhat control the students. If the jury believed those things happened (which they clearly did), then this is not simply a question of the students’ first amendment rights. Similarly, the Gibson’s is racist stuff doesn’t fly in a court room because the data shows otherwise, an inconvenient fact which can be safely ignored in an article but not in a trial. Conversely, some of the texts and e mails that made their way into the trial record show an ugly side of the people involved, there is no two ways about it. The jury had a chance to see all of it, not just the stuff which is comfortable to one side or another. The fact that the jury spoke so clearly here should give us pause.
@#190 My understanding is that it was a lawful detention. The three were charged with attempted robbery, but plead to lesser charges. I am not a lawyer, but I do not think self defense applies.
It was alleged that the youngest Gibson attacked the shoplifter after he ran out of the store. The police and several witnesses saw it differently.
It was not an unlawful detention. There is body cam footage from two of the Oberlin police who responded. To my knowledge, everyone involved in the original altercation has been identified and interviewed. Three people were charged and admitted to wrongdoing.
Agree with a good amount of what OhioDad wrote in #191. however:
“There are significant issues issues with a ruling which seems to hold a college responsible for the actions of its employees and students.”
If the employee is acting on behalf of the institution, it's pretty standard practice to sue the institution.
“Some of those issues involve first amendment claims, some involve academic freedom, some involve general legal concepts like respondeat superior (the doctrine that holds an employer may be responsible for the actions of its agent).”
First amendment issues don't really apply here. First, there is the obvious fact that the First Amendment doesn't protect libelous speech. Second, it doesn't protect speech made on behalf of your employer (most are restricted to some extent by their employers and can be fired for inappropriate speech that harms the company or institution).
Academic freedom issues don't really apply here either. Raimondo wasn't acting in an "academic" capacity ("activist" does not equal "academic") and principles of academic freedom don't extend to the underwriting of student opinion by enbabling/goading them on - or physically being there to participate in and/or facilitate the process. Unfortunately for Raimondo, among other things that "unleash the students" comment was quite incriminating because it suggests that some in executive leadership (and it's very hard to separate her position from "the college" by that point; Raimondo wasn't exactly the janitor or entry-level typist taking matters into her own hands) were using students to achieve a specific agenda - to punish an "out of line" faculty member or punish a nearby place of business, as just two examples.
“Oliver Wendell Holmes said a long time ago that bad facts make bad law, and certainly the case can be made that that is what happened here. For this reason, immense pressure is going to be brought to bear on Oberlin to maintain this case, and try to at least get some clarity from an appellate court if not the Ohio Supreme Court on the type of responsibility being placed on colleges here.”
Haven't followed this case in minute detail, but one thing that stands out - to me, anyway - is that the judge was making sure that it was facts - and not squishy feelings, emotions, or sentiments - that were presented to the jury. Is there a legitimate point of view that this case was decided on other criteria?
I haven’t read enough about this case to know, but I have been wondering about the situation in general.
So say a college official, like Oberlin’s Raimundo, is actively encouraging students to join a protest. Could a student, specially one on scholarship, say that they felt pressured to join the protest?
If the protest is later found to be criminal, what is the college’s liability exposure?
In Ohio case law the indirect elements necessary to constitute and sustain a charge of libel have been explicitly illiterated unlike some of its neighbors. The defendant appears to have checked a lot of boxes including some not so obvious and others not articulated in the press. Actions for defamation in general (of which libel is a subset) overwhelmingly fail (80%+ is a commonly bandied about figure). This case is not a slam but I’m beginning to like it in appeal a lot more.
Torturous interference is an odd duck and in many cases defies all prognostication turning on some of the most arcane and esoteric points of law. The popularity of this kind of action has led to the virtual universal incorporation of standard boiler plate language to be included in offers to attempt to immunize a soliciting party against it.
@JBStillFlying, as I understand the academic freedom argument, it runs like this-academic freedom means that we give our professors and deans a great deal of latitude in expressing their opinion. To turn around now and say we have to treat them like an employee of a normal business and police their speech runs contrary to theses principles. I am not saying I agree with it, but that is the crux of the argument.
The first amendment argument relies on the premise that the college has a duty to “protect” the first amendment rights of its students. Under that argument, the actions taken by Oberlin vis the students should be seen as neutral. No one actually believes they are neutral of course, but this is the first time they have been called on it. I am sure that scares a lot of places.
And I am not sure what you mean about other criteria? The facts here are horrible for the college. The jury got to weigh those. Quite obviously they gave every benefit of the doubt to the plaintiff. Which is their right, unquestionably. What Holmes was saying was that when you have really bad facts like those presented here, sometimes the law stretches to cover the situation and right a wrong. The danger is that the rules that get extended may then be applied to a situation where the equities aren’t quite so one sided and some entity who maybe diesn’t Deserve it will get hammered. Hence “bad facts make bad law”
Call me insensitive but I prefer my detainees just a little more stoic and resolute - particularly right after they (allegedly) have participated in physical violence.