A judge has ordered Oberlin College to pay $6.5 million in attorney’s fees to the law firm that represented Gibson’s Bakery in its defamation suit against the school.
That’s on top of the $25 million in compensatory and punitive damages the school must pay the owners of Gibson’s Bakery.
“Therefore, in addition to attorneys’ fees of $6,271,395, Plaintiffs are hereby awarded the above litigation expenses, which total $294,136.79. In addition court costs are addressed to the Defendants. Case closed,” Lorain County Common Please Judge John Miraldi wrote in his order, according to Legal Insurrection.
Earlier this month, Miraldi ruled that Gibson’s Bakery will only receive $25 million in damages, as opposed to the $44 million a jury ordered the school to pay. Miraldi cited in his decision to slash the award an Ohio law that caps punitive damages at twice the amount of compensatory damages.
Miraldi was first elected in November 2012 and reelected in 2018 as a member of the Democratic Party.
Oberlin College had an endowment of $887.4 million as June 30, 2018, as The Ohio Star previously reported.
Gibson’s Bakery was represented by Tzangas Plakas Mannos, Ltd. in the case. The law firm said the combined $44.2 million initially awarded to the bakery was the largest in Ohio history for any libel or slander case.
“As evidenced by the magnitude of the verdict, the jury sent a clear message—not just to Oberlin College, but to colleges and universities across the country,” said attorney Lee Plakas. “And now the Gibson family can get back to rebuilding their family business, knowing their name has been cleared in both the court of law and the court of public opinion.”
Cornell law professor William Jacobson, CEO of Legal Insurrection, previously said that Oberlin College tried to “sacrifice a beloved fifth-generation bakery, its owners, and its employees at the altar of political correctness to appease the campus ‘social justice warfare’ mob.”
“The jury sent a clear message that the truth matters, and so do the reputations and lives of people targeted by false accusations, particularly when those false accusations are spread by powerful institutions,” he added.
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Anthony Gockowski is managing editor of Battleground State News, The Ohio Star, and The Minnesota Sun. Follow Anthony on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
