Court won't hear appeal of $25 million judgment against Oberlin
A judgment ordering Oberlin College to pay $25 million to a local business after it sued the college for libel following a shoplifting incident involving three Black students will stand.
The Ohio Supreme Court on Tuesday said it would not take up an appeal of the judgment against Oberlin College
The court did not say why it would not hear the appeal. The 9th District Court of Appeals in Akron upheld the judgment in late March.
Oberlin College in a statement said officials are disappointed the Supreme Court did not hear the school's appeal.
"The issues raised by this case have been challenging, not only for the parties involved, but for the entire Oberlin community," the statement said.
Allyn Gibson and his son, David Gibson, owners of Gibson's Bakery, sued Oberlin College in November 2017 claiming Oberlin had libeled Gibson's Bakery and that it harmed their business.
The lawsuit was filed a year after David Gibson's son, also named Allyn, chased and tackled an underage, Black male student he suspected of having stolen a bottle of wine. Two Black female students who were with the male student tried to intervene. All three were arrested and later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges.
The arrests triggered lawful student protests outside Gibson's Bakery where flyers accusing the Gibsons of racist business practices were distributed. A Student Senate resolution condemning the Gibsons was emailed to all students and was posted in a display case at school's student center, where it remained for a year. Oberlin College officials ordered its campus food provider to stop buying bakery items from Gibson's.
The college said it suspended its order for 28 business days, after which it resumed its regular order with the bakery.
The college also said it did not "approve, endorse, or condone" the students' speech and that it, as an institution, should not be held accountable for its students' speech.
"Essentially it's saying that the college should be held liable for student speech and we're saying that that's not the right decision," Oberlin College president Carmen Twillie Ambar told CBS News in 2019.
A Lorain County jury awarded the Gibsons $44 million in compensatory and punitive damages in June 2019 after a five week trial. A judge later reduced the award to $25 million.
David Gibson died in November 2019 at age 65. Allyn Gibson died in February. He was 93.