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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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.