Oberlin College Settles With Insurers Over Gibson’s Bakery Payout
“We are pleased that Oberlin has reached a confidential resolution with our insurers. Our settlement with our two primary insurers — Lexington and UE — is significant.”
Oberlin College ended up paying over $36 million in the Gibson’s Bakery case, after exhausting all appeals. It was not a voluntary payment, it was either that, or the Gibsons could start seizing college property.
[See, VIDEO: The Inside Story of The Gibson’s Bakery v. Oberlin College Case]
Oberlin College then sued several of its insurers, seeking coverage for some or all of the payout. We covered that lawsuit on August 6, 2023, Oberlin College Sues Insurers For Refusing To Cover $36 Million It Paid Gibson’s Bakery For Defamation And Other Torts.
Read the post for the full scope of the claims and background of the insurance dispute that surfaced even during the trial. The short version is that Oberlin College asserted that the insurers wrongfully refused to settle the case prior to trial, blaming the insurers not the college for the ultimate trial debacle:
6. To make matters worse, Lexington and United Educators observed mock jury exercises before the Gibson trial and were therefore fully aware of the possibility for a substantial plaintiffs’ verdict. The record also shows that Lexington and United Educators both had numerous pre-trial opportunities to resolve the underlying litigation for a small fraction of the eventual verdict. For instance, on the eve of trial, it became clear that the case likely could be settled for under $10 million. Accordingly, Oberlin demanded that Lexington and United Educators fund a settlement that would have been well within the combined $50 million limits of their policies to avoid the risk of a substantial jury verdict.
The insurance litigation was complex, involving multiple parties and coverages. It could make your head spin, and made me glad I didn’t get involved in insurance law when I was in private practice.
We followed the pleadings and motions, and noted how in the past month Oberlin College has entered voluntary dismissals with several of the main insurers.
That is a sign of a settlement. Most recently, lead insurance company defendant, Lexington Insurance, was dismissed. So the case is over.
Oberlin College’s Director of Media Relations, Andrea Simakis, has confirmed to me the settlements but without disclosing dollar amounts:
“We are pleased that Oberlin has reached a confidential resolution with our insurers. Our settlement with our two primary insurers — Lexington and UE — is significant.”
UE is United Educators Insurance.
So Oberlin got paid back some portion of what it paid out. Which is good for Oberlin College, but probably bad for society, because it might mean the college is more inclined to engage in bad conduct in the future.
[Featured Image: The late David Gibson and ‘Grandpa’ Allyn W. Gibson at trial][Photo credit Bob Perkoski for Legal Insurrection Foundation]
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You are assuming they can get insurance. None of the current insurers will renew. When they do get insurance their rates will astronomical. So the board and college management will continue to feel the pain for years to come. FJB
Fingers crossed
I would love to see a coup, where Oberlin is highjacked by conservatives, where all upper management is ousted, followed by all liberal teachers. Then align Oberlin with Hillsdale. That would be justice.
Oberlin is likely to continue stepping in steamy piles. Be ready to support other victims. Campaigns to alert students and their parents are a great way to soften Oberlin for eventual takeover.
How about a Oberlin sucks website and YouTube and other platforms?
Oberlin is not sorry right now, but they can be made sorry, to feel sorry for themselves.
Oberlin has a lot of potential. Fine location. Conservatory in good shape. They were said to have some decent science faculty. It mainly needs a change at the top, someone like the guy that took over New College in Florida.
I think it’s more serious than that, all toxic culture.
The Conservatory doesn’t seem to be doing classical music to judge by the Alumni magazine.
Preservation of Western music seems to be falling to the young East Asians (Korea and Japan mostly) now, who have taken it up very seriously.
Noticed last night
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMx3nFY3oKw
Yunchan Lim playing what are normally very dry Bach student recital pieces with astounding appreciation.
The Chairman of Oberlin’s Board of Trustees is a long time associate of Soros. IMO the chances of any meaningful change in direction are slim to none.
What? Get rid of TWILLIE? No can do … the DEI student body would burn the place down.
What’s stopping you, John? Lead by example. Websites are cheap, and a sharp guy like you will have no problem, defeating the libel suits Oberlin will send your way after your “Oberlin sucks,” website gets going.
Got any more details on how you plan to “hijack” Oberlin?
Punitive damages pretty much ruined the legal system so it’s not going to make moral sense in any case.
Punitive damages are the only way people can be made whole in many cases.
Then write the law to allow more in the regular judgment, or else the legislative intent was that people are not made whole to that extent, and stop cheating by judge’s discretion.
How could anybody downvote his comments???
Because they’re wrong, that’s why. Punitive damages are right and necessary, when a defendant has deliberately done wrong, figuring that at worst it would have to pay the damage
Exactly
My state (Washington State) doesn’t allow punitive damages except where the Legislature has specifically permitted them.
What that has done is to cause the State Supreme Court to adopt more liberal rules of law than in most states.
I do plaintiff’s insurance coverage work and it’s a great place to do it.
Punitive damages are often excessive and represent an abuse. That doesn’t seem to be the case here where we have a wealthy college setting out to destroy a local family for political and ideological gain. The amount is commensurate with the actions and the wealth the college. It needed to be enough to hurts After all, while we can argue about amounts, society needed to punish Oberlin Beverly lest they try to ruin other lives.
Punitive damages are sometimes excessive. So are actual damages, sometimes.
Oberlin, the Antioch of the future.
I wonder if Oberlin’s SJP chapter has an encampment on their property and is raising as much hell as their other chapters on other campuses. For the sheer inconveniences it would give Oberlin College leftist professors and administrators, I certainly hope so.
Why would there be encampments at oberlin? The school is about as far left as you get. Recent encampments were held to try to get schools to denounce and punish people they didn’t like. Oberlin already does that in spades, like the Gibson fiasco that occurred when one of the owners had the temerity to hold a shoplifter until the police came. The thief admitted he had stolen, but since he was black, it naturally followed that Gibson must be racist and therefore ostracized and marginalized, hopefully to go bankrupt.
So I repeat the original question: why go to the inconvenience of a campout? Just to be trendy? All they have to do is point out an “injustice” and the oberlin admins join the party.
One word: Optics. SJP would love to show that it’s joining in the fray in solidarity with their comrades on other campuses. The optics of protesting are worth far more than the actual meaning or words. Maybe it’s just my age, or my background having seen these protests when I was a kid, but they made an impact and everyone at every college/university was jumping on the bandwagon even at tiny schools that nobody every heard of. And it was all about optics—getting in the local paper, having a local TV station reporting the event, having the local radio station reporting live—whatever. It was the publicity that worked the message. It was the addiction of attention that was more of a narcotic than any actual substances these protesters might do. Andy Warhol’s “15 minutes” has been replaced by X/Twitter and other social media—and that’s what these kids are after.
Exactly, the entire campus is already an SJP encampment. Back when the Gibsons fiasco began, Oberlin was in danger of losing their edge as a “destination vacation for the demonstration inclined,” so I suspect a bit of the motivation for the entire ramping up of the protests was to get themselves back on that map. Except this time it backfired in a big way. That “free press” turned out to have a much higher cost than they anticipated. I still deeply believe that there was alot of behind the scenes maneuvering by several parties (up to and including the BoT) to make sure that “it happened.” In no way shape or form were they going to let this crisis go to waste. It was no more spontaneous than any of these current encampments which are all spontaneously populated with identical tents.
Difficult to believe that a reputable liberal arts college spent years arguing for the right of a black student to steal a couple of bottles of wine and, when caught, for that black student and his black friends to beart up an elderly shop owner. How is that even possible??? Seems Oberlin’s leadership was less than worthless. Seems it was worth -$36 million.
In other words, the college’s leadership was a liability.
Who says that it still isn’t? They are far from sober, and merely between drinks, so to speak. It is their nature. I am actually a bit surprised that there isn’t a George Floyd residence hall by this point in time.
It never argued that. Its arguments were mostly irrelevant and dishonest, but that wasn’t one of them. It was arguing for the students’ right to call the bakery racist, and for it not to be liable for what they say. Both of which were 100% correct but irrelevant to the case.
It kept deliberately ignoring what the case was actually about, which was the college itself, not the students, making false factual statements about the bakery.
The truth is that Raimondo probably didn’t originally understand what she was doing. In her zeal and/or ignorance, she didn’t understand the difference between calling Gibson’s racist, which is protected speech, and alleging that Gibsons had taken specific actions, which it hadn’t actually done. That was not protected, and that’s why there was a lawsuit.
As I understand the local politics, Oberlin wanted Gibson’s real estate. I think they thought they could drive Gibson’s into bankruptcy to get it cheap. They damn near succeeded.
Pay up bitches!!
Several bitches caused this.
the college fought for illegal activities to be legal
so the college is saying come to our houses and steal from us????
they think they endeared themselves/protected themselves from the blmplo hoards
lol
Some of their claims sound a little odd since Oberlin and it’s faculty were very vocal about teaching Gibson’s Bakery a lesson. I don’t remember any talk about settling back then.
I hope that the Gibson family considers teaching further lessons to Oberlin College. The business I was in required that I learn how to do this, I would be pleased to coach Gibson’s how to address the college’s disreputable conduct.
This would also be good for the Oberlin community. Currently they are hostages to the college.
Money alone does not fix the injustice.
To be fair, it was a mostly peaceful fire and brimstone to be rained down on them.
Somehow, I doubt that they will get insurance from these companies, or that there will be terms that exclude coverage for a case like this.
So Oberlin got paid back some portion of what it paid out. Which is good for Oberlin College, but probably bad for society, because it might mean the college is more inclined to engage in bad conduct in the future.
Why would an insurer pay a claim based on the insured’s intentional tort? That is one the insurer should litigate.
Pay attention. They didn’t pay the judgment, but then Oberlin sued them and they settled by paying some unknown amount.
In short:
Oberlin: Why didn’t you tell us Gibsons was going to win! We’re suing you!
Insurance: We did tell you! Repeatedly! But we’ll cut you a very *small* check in order to never see you again.
Oberlin: Good! Moral victory! Seal the records. So when can we expect a quote for next year’s insurance?
Insurance: Don’t call us, we’ll call you on the second of Never.
arti – your reply is is correct, but you misunderstand my comment. Oberlin was found to have committed an intentional tort resulting in injury to the Bakery. Oberlin did not have insurance covering intentional torts. That’s why the insurer didn’t cover the claim against Oberlin or pay the judgment. I’m not aware of any insurers that offer policies covering intentional torts by the insured. In light of that, why do you think Oberlin’s insurer paid Oberlin anything?
I think it probably wasn’t intentional. I don’t think Raimondo appreciated the difference between slinging abuse and making false factual statements. She may even not have realized that her factual statements were false. She may have assumed they were true because in her mind they must be true, and it never occurred to her that she had no objective basis for that assumption.
Also, while Oberlin was responsible for Raimondo’s tort, can it be described as having intended it? The college didn’t intend it, Raimondo did. The college just has to be pay for it. So maybe on that basis it could have had a claim for the insurer to pay up.
In any case, the insurer saw at least some risk that defending itself would cost more than settling. Since we don’t know how much the settlement was, we can’t tell how big it thought that risk was.
Does intention matter for insurance coverage?
Oberlin will be paying higher insurance premiums for a long time because of this costly debacle. In addition insurance carriers take notice of troublesome insureds who sue insurance companies and decline to insure them. I wonder if the settlement numbers are big enough to make it into a future 990 filed by Oberlin. And no one at Oberlin has seen their career suffer for causing this mess. Must be nice to work for a college or university.
“Which is good for Oberlin College, but probably bad for society, because it might mean the college is more inclined to engage in bad conduct in the future.”
If they can even get insurance given their past bad behavior.
Settling was the one thing that Oberlin College never did with the Gibson’s. Oberlin treats their complete defeat in the lawsuit as a moral victory. Sad.
As for this settlement with the insurers, I strongly suspect that it is for much less than the costs of the lawsuit.
“Oberlin treats their complete defeat in the lawsuit as a moral victory.”
“It’s just a flesh wound!”
My SWAG is that the settlement amount from the insurance companies was equal to dick-all. It was significant only in the miniscule amount. Since Oberlin has not showed any capacity for learning through these events, my guess is that not only are the insurance companies not giving them money, but Oberlin is now viewed as a toxic customer like a person with 10 DUIs. By harrassing the insurance companies, they have likely only increased future insurance costs. They lived in a bubble for so long that i no longer believe that they understand how stuff works in the real world, which is concerning, because it then brings up the question of how are they then able to teach students to deal with the real world. My guess there is “poorly.”
Will Oberlin have the same insurance companies next year?
I wonder if they will have any insurance company next year. I see no inclination on their part to “put the plug in the jug,” so to speak.
I am dealing with a variation of a company with past exposures and the insurers aren’t stupid when it comes to sticking it to you.
What I am uncertain of is whether this policy and the funds behind it would be on the domestic market or not. Keep in mind- theres underlying funds and re-insurers covering stuff behind the scenes and regulation on how “solvent” those funds have to be.
I’m aware of a company getting a much higher risk rating because they have gotten their pants pulled on a risk multiple times (it’s been in the news). Everyone should hate this company- they are evil and although it makes my day job a living hell I’m glad to see the screws get put to them via a third party underwriter. bhahahahahhahaa.
Making that claim took some chutzpah, since Oberlin itself turned down a golden opportunity to resolve the litigation for nothing at all. All the Gibsons originally demanded was a public apology. If Oberlin had agreed, it would have cost them nothing. But it refused; now it says the insurers should have settled for a mere $10 million?!
I notice that the one suit was settled with Meredith Raimondo as a co-plaintiff (?). IIRC, Raimondo is the Dean of Students who was the epicenter of the whole fiasco. She painted Gibson’s as racist and obsessively kept at them like a chihuahua nipping at someone’s heel. She wouldn’t let it go, either and finally Gibson’s had no other recourse over the ensuing disaster. Raimondo left and went to another school, but of course she relied on the liability waiver in her contract and probably the E & O policy provisions in the insurance coverage. She and other people who perpetrated this fiasco should have had their lives ruined, but instead she gets off with another job, and probably helping the SJP chapter at the school where she’s at. Ugh…..what a cockroach!
That she painted Gibson’s as racist was not the issue. She could do that as much as she liked, because it’s mere opinion and not actionable. Her error was going beyond that and making objective factual statements that weren’t true. That’s what Gibson’s sued for, and that’s why it won.
While the amount of the settlement is confidential, I wonder if one could infer the amount of the settlement from careful reading of various Oberlin financial statements or annual reports.
As long as there is pending litigation, the Oberlin Administration can put off having to come clean with the alumni. The whole appeal process which likely wasted another $6M+ was, IMHO, just a delay tactic so that they didn’t have to come clean about being complete knobs back in 2017 when this could have all been settled with an apology and a resumption of business.
From the very start, I believe the entire basis of all decisions by Oberlin College was the absolute preservation of THE RACE CARD. It is their most important tool, which is pulled out the second that they start to lose any argument that is being opposed with either facts or logic, and most often both. Until this case, there were no consequences to pulling out the race card. Suddenly there were, and a lot has changed since then. This loss became the chink in their armor.
I wear my Gibsons Bakery ballcap every day and it is starting to fall apart in the front. It is very popular at Oberlin events. I just received a Chief Wahoo cap from my recently deceased BiL’s estate, but that will be for extra special occasions only.
When the Gibson family gets its money, it should shut down the store and move to a community that might appreciate a neighborhood bakery and store. Oberlin is a bad neighbor and, apparently, a worse customer.
The Gibson’s family has long since gotten the money. I think a nice touch would be to deliver to President Twillie a free box of cookies at the holidays.
I disagree. The Gibsons are just as much a part of Oberlin as the college. They’re good, honest, hard-working people running a family business. They have my utmost respect.
With all the craziness that goes on at Oberlin, the Gibsons’ mere presence in town sends a message that slander will not be tolerated, and even radical college administrators are accountable. I hope they stay put.
Very gracious of Gibson’s attorney to acknowledge Legal Insurrection, its staff, and readers.
Poring over the dailies and being able to note issues that might be raised was also gratifying.