I am also rather surprised by this display of naivete. You are honestly confused about how a defamation award might total more than current stock and equipment on hand? Distributing pamphlets and canceling the bakery’s vendor contract is a “second fiddle role”?
First of all, I did not shit in your cornflakes this morning, so perhaps we can dial back the vitriol in the posts a little?
It would seem odd to me that people I’ve known for a long time and find to be trustworthy would suddenly fabricate accusations of racism just because of this one court case. I think your presumption that they are lying is not credible, even though I cannot come to my own firm conclusion of what is ground truth here.
The folks did not assert that the store had compelled arrests based on racism. The general assertion is that the owners of the store engaged in the whole “shopping while black” thing, were verbally offensive to minorities, etc.
Yes. Remind me again, are you an attorney? I welcome your explanation of compensatory damages being so high. I understand that compensatory damages relate to actual losses sustained, which is why they are often low compared to punitive damages. ETA: even one of the linked articles says that the store did $35,000 to 65,000 in business with the college. So do you know how the $11 million was calculated? Was it based on the contract being cancelled for the next 100 years, plus some other costs?
I put a link to those numbers above.
Thing is your talking about a business that dates back to 1885 and this incident basically, or at least tries to, wipe them out. The income of 3-5 generations, plus many hired staff, wiped out.
Is this the first lawsuit you’ve read about? I find it very hard to believe that you think current networth is some imaginary cap on what may be awarded. They have a cancelled contract and other future business impacted by this protest/shaming. They have the social stigma they’ll have to wear over this. No, I’m not an attorney but I’m sure a quick google will bring you lawyerly explanations on how reparative and punitive damages are justified.
Uhm… past business for many generations isn’t wiped out. It isn’t like Oberlin has been saving up all the money owed to them over the past century for one REALLY BIG PAYOFF!!! that now isn’t coming.
Sounds like you’re mad at me for being wrong but you can’t explain why I am.
Seems to me, you can’t explain why you’re right. Remember that McDonald’s coffee lady? Did you think “WTf? That lady’s lap isn’t worth $3M. That’s an 80 yr old lap!” when she won her lawsuit?
Those were punitive damages. Her compensatory damages were $160,000.
whomp whomp.
I have no views on whether the bakery did anything racist, but I’d like to point out certain phrases in this excerpt:
“tried to sacrifice…at the altar of political correctness”
“‘social justice warfare’ mob”
“all lives matter”
And that’s in one small paragraph. Going back to a previous point raised in this thread, do you think that perhaps this might not be a particularly unbiased information source?
I thought being ‘consequenced’ for so-called free speech was the in thing now. What’s the problem?
Her compensatory damages were $300,000 (less some amount based on the fact that her actually spilling the coffee was her own fault.) That was based on the cost of skin grafts, days in hospital, perhaps lost wages of her family members while she convalesced. The punitive damages were the real kicker, but it was still under a million after the judge set aside the jury’s recommended amount.
If I sue you for your drive-by posts, how much do you think I could get?
I honestly don’t get it. You surely realize the jury is not made up of accountants. Since you’re older than 10, I assume you know these damages will likely be reduced on appeal. Yet you seem to honestly expect me to crunch the numbers to prove a $11M is proper compensatory damages? What has your accounting shown to be the perfect number?
Day’s not over but I’ve got a high level of confidence this post is today’s winner. 
The bitter irony here is that this literally is a free speech debate - the government is sanctioning speech. It’s not “a team fired a member who said heinous things he agreed not to say in his contract” or “people boycott a restaurant for being bigoted”, it’s the government stepping in to legally punish someone for speech. But since it’s a right-wing cause… Of course it’s fine. :rolleyes:
As said, this is where the mask slips. It’s not about free speech. It’s about making sure that there are no consequences for right-wing beliefs, no matter how noxious those beliefs are. The typical people who are constantly up in arms about campus free speech are utterly silent here (or, like you, are against free speech). Another, related case: PragerU complaining about being “silenced” on tech platforms.
It’s not about free speech. It was never actually about free speech. Free speech is nothing but a cudgel to be used against the left. Thank you for demonstrating this beautifully.
What are the noxious right-wing beliefs you think should have consequences - that people shouldn’t shoplift, or that people shouldn’t make false accusations against each other?
Regards,
Shodan
Free speech does not mean libelous or defamatory speech. The university made specific false claims about the store in an effort to hurt their business and defame the proprietor’s character. That is the definition of defamation.
BPC, defamation has never been protected speech. Insisting otherwise would be almost as laughable as pretending that Oberlin College’s student newspaper is just a “trustworthy” “local paper directly on the ground.”
If you wish to argue that free speech does or should protect defamation, perhaps you ought to lay out that argument. If you wish to argue that even though free speech doesn’t protect defamation, what the college did wasn’t or at least shouldn’t be defamation… well, I’m not sure I’d disagree with you, but such an argument would also have virtually nothing to do with what you’ve had to say so far.
From the bakery’s actual complaint – start around paragraph 30 or so – you can see that the college was sued because, the bakery alleges, it and its agents materially assisted in the dissemination of libelous statements (amongst other things – the college was also found liable for the intentional inflection of emotional distress and, via its Dean of Students, for interference with business relations). We needn’t assume the truth of the bakery’s complaint, but I don’t think it’s unfair to expect you to accurately describe it.
I have mixed feelings on the whole thing – for one thing, the $11 million in compensatory damages seems outlandishly high to me, and I’m not sure that what the college did ought to meet the legal standards for libel – but assuming for the sake of argument that the college was directly involved in the publication of libel, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to hold them accountable for their actions.
Ravenman, there is some breakdown here for the kinds of damages the bakery’s side claimed. Here you can see that it wasn’t $11 million in compensatory damages to the bakery, but in damages to the bakery plus a couple of family members. It doesn’t break down how the figures were arrived at, which I understand is what you’re after.
Folks, this is one jury verdict. There’s already an appeal in the works. It’s not a SCOTUS decision. Here are two relevant SCOTUS decisions:
Teachers have the right to express opinions in public: *Pickering *v. *Board of Education *(1968).
Pickering, a teacher, wrote a letter to the editor of the local newspaper, a form of public protest. SCOTUS ruled that Pickering’s letter was constitutional free speech. From Oyez:
Bearing on the Oberlin case: The professors and other employees have the right to voice opinions publically. Even if the allegations of racism (past or present) were false, the Oberlin faculty and other employees would have to have known the statements were false or made them recklessly, i.e., without due consideration.
Did the college, itself–that is, the administration under the auspices of the Board of Trustees–sponsor the protests? I can’t find evidence of that, but if it did, does the (private) college count as an individual, as SCOTUS said corporations do?
Boycotts are legal: NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. (1982)
SCOTUS decision : Unanimous*
Bearing on the Oberlin case: Businesses cannot recover damages from boycotters.
And some context: in 1835, two years after its founding, Oberlin, a private college founded by Presbyterians, became the first US college to admit Blacks. Two years later, it admitted women. It fought for abolition. By 1900, a third of all blacks with college degrees graduated from Oberlin. Once again, history is relevant to understanding.
And this is a long way from over.
*Justice Thurgood Marshall didn’t take part in consideration or decision.
I questioned how a jury could find $11 million in compensatory damages, and you all but called me stupid. I asked you to explain it to me, and you said you can’t. Then you raised a case with high punitive damages, and I pointed out that that is a different matter. Now you’re asking me to come up with a precise calculation of what I think is justified?
I think I’ve wandered into a thread about cantankerous performance art…
And gr8rguy, thank you for adding some substance to this trainwreck thread to try to address my question. Your civility and constructiveness is a breath of fresh air.
$11M seems high to me too, in terms of compensatory damages, and in all likelihood it is since it’s the figure from the plaintiff’s accountant. From reading the article linked by gr8rguy, it seems there are other tangential business ventures that are being claimed to be impacted as well, both current and future so that is contributing to the high figure.