Judge: Oberlin must post $36 million bond to appeal
The judge in the Gibson’s Bakery vs Oberlin College case has ruled that if Oberlin wants to appeal the judgement against it, it must first post the entire judgement amount, $36.3 million, in a bond.
According to the judge:
The need for such bond is made clear by the College’s own statements about its dire fmancial straits. If the College is to be believed, there is serious concern about its ability to pay this sizeable judgment three years from now. At trial, and in its recent filing, the College represented that there was only $59.1 million of unrestricted endowment funds available to pay any dollar judgment and that $10 million of those funds had already been committed to pay down the College’s existing debt. [Trial Tr., June 12, 2019 at 95:13-21] There remains $190 million of existing debt on the College’s books. [Id.] The College has also testified that it has a significant operating deficit and that its deficit situation is not sustainable…. [Trial Tr., June 12, 2019 atpp. 86:1-6, 88:1-9]
The College also testified at trial that they have experienced a “significant” and “steady” decline of enrollment from 2014 to 2018. [emphasis mine]
The college has seven days to post the bond, or the appeal with be squashed.
It has been very clear since the jury’s decision that Oberlin still intends to fight, and is likely to use every means in its possession, including political action, to either get the judgement dismissed, or likely make it impossible for it to pay. The judge here is telling them that they surely have the right to fight, but not at the expense of Gibson’s Bakery.
The highlighted text could be the poster child for self-unawareness. Oberlin is very aware that its enrollment is dropping, but it is entirely clueless as to why. Maybe the college should consider its own actions as the cause?
Nah. It must be those racist, homophobic, and deplorable whites! Yeah! They are the ones to blame! They’re all ignorant white supremacists! All of them!
This is essentially what the Oberlin administration has been saying during this whole debacle, as well as several years earlier. And it is essentially why students are less willing to enroll. You go to college to learn how to be a discerning educated person, not an anti-white bigot.
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The judge in the Gibson’s Bakery vs Oberlin College case has ruled that if Oberlin wants to appeal the judgement against it, it must first post the entire judgement amount, $36.3 million, in a bond.
According to the judge:
The need for such bond is made clear by the College’s own statements about its dire fmancial straits. If the College is to be believed, there is serious concern about its ability to pay this sizeable judgment three years from now. At trial, and in its recent filing, the College represented that there was only $59.1 million of unrestricted endowment funds available to pay any dollar judgment and that $10 million of those funds had already been committed to pay down the College’s existing debt. [Trial Tr., June 12, 2019 at 95:13-21] There remains $190 million of existing debt on the College’s books. [Id.] The College has also testified that it has a significant operating deficit and that its deficit situation is not sustainable…. [Trial Tr., June 12, 2019 atpp. 86:1-6, 88:1-9]
The College also testified at trial that they have experienced a “significant” and “steady” decline of enrollment from 2014 to 2018. [emphasis mine]
The college has seven days to post the bond, or the appeal with be squashed.
It has been very clear since the jury’s decision that Oberlin still intends to fight, and is likely to use every means in its possession, including political action, to either get the judgement dismissed, or likely make it impossible for it to pay. The judge here is telling them that they surely have the right to fight, but not at the expense of Gibson’s Bakery.
The highlighted text could be the poster child for self-unawareness. Oberlin is very aware that its enrollment is dropping, but it is entirely clueless as to why. Maybe the college should consider its own actions as the cause?
Nah. It must be those racist, homophobic, and deplorable whites! Yeah! They are the ones to blame! They’re all ignorant white supremacists! All of them!
This is essentially what the Oberlin administration has been saying during this whole debacle, as well as several years earlier. And it is essentially why students are less willing to enroll. You go to college to learn how to be a discerning educated person, not an anti-white bigot.
Readers!
Every February I run a fund-raising drive during my birthday month. This year I celebrate my 72nd birthday, and hope and plan to continue writing and posting on Behind the Black for as long as I am able.
I hope my readers will support this effort. As I did in my November fund-raising drive, I am offering autographed copies of my books for large donations. Donate $250 and you can have a choice of the hardback of either Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space. Donate $200 and you can get an autographed paperback copy of either. IMPORTANT! If you donate enough to get a book, please email me separately to tell me which book you want and the address to mail it to.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Good on the judge!
Bet he faces all kinds of intimidations!
The court order was dated July 24th, so Oberlin has until the 31st (presumably close of business, usually 5PM local time) to comply. If it does not, not only is the appeal tossed, but Gibson’s can begin seizing Oberlin’s assets to satisfy the debt.
“The compensatory and punitive damages of $25 million (after reduction for tort reform caps), plus the over $6.5 million in attorney’s fees and costs, put Oberlin College almost $32 million in debt to Gibson’s Bakery and its owners.
Absent some judicial action, the next step would have been for the Gibsons to execute on the judgment, meaning start collecting the money through post-judgment remedies, such as seizing bank accounts and physical property.
Oberlin College, which intends to appeal once post-trial motions are over, obviously doesn’t want its bank accounts, computer equipment, and er, Dean of Students’ office furniture, seized just as the freshman class was arriving”
I think I would seize $32M in Oberlin real estate (Main admin building? Dining hall? Some dorms? Imagine being an incoming freshman and finding out your dorm is locked and sealed by the sheriff or there is nowhere to eat) then make them pay an exorbitant rent in order to use it.
Col Beausabre-
Great Stuff! (I’d seize the Alumni fundraising computer’s & database, the Student center, and attach liens on tenured professors paychecks & pensions…)
a repeat from another thread:
“Race Madness At Oberlin College”
Richard A. Epstein/Hoover
Monday, June 24, 2019
https://www.hoover.org/research/race-madness-oberlin-college
Gibson College has a nice ring to it
Oberlin is in possession of a Modigliani nude that could go for as high as $150 million, based on a similar piece that sold at auction last year. That’s what I’d seize.
If Oberlin indeed does own a Modigliani nude then it does seem that their problems if push comes to shove are solved, with a tidy bit left over.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/24/modigliani-nude-estimated-to-sell-for-150-million-at-spring-auctions.html
All they seem to have are problems (all first world problems)
The discrepancy between the $32M I quote and the #36M in Bob’s story is that in the later, the judge has included anticipated interest until the appeals process ends on the $32M the Gibsons would get today if the judgment is not contested.
PS Oberlin parents are paying $55K a year for this. And if the Left has it way, the US taxpayers will be, since you’ll be the one paying once $1.4T in student debt is “forgiven” (paid by you – every penny is guaranteed by the US government and yes, it WILL be paid to the bond holders who fronted the money for these loans. Or the US economy collapses. The Left can’t wave a magic wand and throw some pixie dust and make it disappear, it must be paid by someone. Feel the target on your back?). And oh, the biggest debtors happen to be doctors and lawyers and payrents who are doctors and lawyers. The Hill reports “About a third of education debt is held by the richest 25 percent of households, much of it for degrees in medicine, law and business”. Federal law caps total undergraduate student loans at $60K per individual. Loans for graduate and professional degrees – which normally lead to higher, some times much higher incomes than the normal college graduate – have no cap at all. All of which demonstrates that “student loan forgiveness” is hardly to “equalize” American society by helping the poor for a step on the ladder leading upwards, it’s a bail out for the upper middle class.
Col Beausabre-
again– great stuff.
Personally, both my wife & I paid back our student loans, and my daughter graduated with a PhD in research-pharmacology, debt-free. (For the grand-daughter, if she goes somewhere I approve, I’m ready to fund it all myself.)
What we need— massive claw-backs on that $1.5T in debt. 99% of that money went to America-hating colleges & universities, with overpaid tenured professors (who are also America-haters.)
If these colleges had to actually earn-their-keep, they would have went bankrupt a long time ago.