
Jury Awards Gibson's Bakery $11M Against Oberlin College - grellas
https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/06/verdict-jury-awards-gibsons-bakery-11-million-against-oberlin-college/
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grellas
A potentially explosive case in which protests/boycotts by college
students/administrators based on claims of alleged racial profiling by a local
business appear to have backfired in a big way - at least in the first big
legal phase.

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OrwellianChild
There is a _ton_ of background at that link, but can you help me understand
what portion of the protests and/or severing of business contracts was
damaging and/or considered tortuous interference? With no opinion on either of
the plaintiffs (I hadn't heard of the case), it's not immediately clear to me
what happened that wasn't organized protest in a public space (which,
presumably, would have been legally fine).

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grellas
This site has followed the case closely and goes through a lot of the evidence
in the linked items. In general, the defendants appeared to go over a line by
asserting that the arrest of a shoplifter was based on racial profiling when
there was utterly no evidence that the bakery had profiled anybody and when
the evidence appeared open-and-shut that shoplifting had occurred (as the
guilty pleas eventually confirmed). The other potentially inflammatory element
is the huge impact the protests/boycott had on the bakery, essentially almost
destroying its business. When you put it all together, it becomes a hard case
to defend and the verdict reflects that. At the same time, this is a
preliminary report on the verdict and I am sure more details/analysis will
follow.

