Oberlin College announces appeal of Gibson’s case ruling

Oberlin College’s Board of Trustees announced Oct. 8 that it voted to appeal the jury verdict that held it and the college’s Dean of Students liable for a protest organized independently by students, according to a news release.

Attorneys representing Oberlin College filed a Notice of Appeal with the Ninth District Court of Appeals in Akron.

“The decision is grounded in the Board’s fiduciary responsibility to the College’s longterm financial health,” said Board Chairman Chris Canavan.

Left standing, the verdict also could set a troubling precedent for those institutions, like Oberlin, that are committed to respecting free speech, Canavan said.

Oberlin College will continue to support the Oberlin business community, he said.

The College has assembled an appellate legal team to take on the many dimensions of this case, Canavan said.

The team includes First Amendment attorneys Lee Levine and Seth Berlin from the Washington, D.C., office of the national law firm Ballard Spahr and appellate attorneys Benjamin Sassé and Irene KeyseWalker from the Cleveland office of the national law firm of Tucker Ellis.

These attorneys will work with trial counsel from Taft Stettinius & Hollister of Cleveland and from Wickens Herzer Panza of Avon to address the intersection of defamation law, First Amendment principles and Ohio tort reform doctrines this case raises, the release said.

National reputation

Levine has a national reputation as a leading First Amendment attorney and, during a career that

spans four decades, has argued cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, has appeared in most federal appeals courts and has written extensively on First Amendment and defamation law, according to the release.

Berlin has represented clients in First Amendment cases for more than 25 years and has argued cases in numerous federal trial and appeals courts and in state courts across the country, the release said.

He is an adjunct professor of First Amendment and Media Law at Georgetown University Law Center.

“The verdict and judgment in this case set a precedent that endangers free speech on campuses and for all Americans,” Levine said. “The jury was allowed to award substantial damages for speech that is protected by the Constitution.

“The case should absolutely be reviewed by an appellate court.”

Sassé is the chair of an Appellate & Legal Issues group with a long history of taking on state and federal cases at the appellate level, according to the release.

He successfully has argued cases on a broad range of issues before the Ohio Supreme Court and is a regular speaker on Ohio Supreme Court cases and practice.

Keyse-Walker has argued hundreds of state and federal

appeals across the nation, with a focus on Ohio’s Supreme Court and 12 intermediate appellate courts.

She was the first Ohio attorney elected to the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers and has written and spoken extensively on the development of an appellate practice, the release said.

The case

“This case never should have gone to the jury in light of the heightened speech protections in the Ohio Constitution, and the trial court made several procedural errors during trial that led to this verdict,” Sassé said. “Among other things, those errors prevented jurors from hearing critical information about the original incident.”

On Nov. 9, 2016, a student was accused of shoplifting and attempting to use fake identification to buy alcoholic beverages at Gibson’s Bakery.

A member of the Gibson family confronted the student, pursued the student out of the store into nearby Tappan Square and engaged in a physical altercation with the student, detaining him until police arrived, according to trial testimony.

Two other students also got physically involved in the incident and several students and others in the Square witnessed the altercation,

the testimony said.

Within 18 hours, students had organized a protest.

The College took steps, consistent with its protest policy, to ensure that it was peaceful and sought to de-escalate tensions in the community, the release said.

In June 2019, a Lorain County jury awarded Gibson’s Bakery and its family $44 million in connection with the lawsuit.

Common Pleas Judge John R. Miraldi, who presided over the case, has since reduced the judgment to $31.6 million.

Miraldi was unavailable for comment.

“The College and the town of Oberlin have been vital to one another since 1833, and we value our longterm relationships with the town’s citizens and businesses,” Canavan said. “We also have a mission to support free inquiry, allow faculty and students to ask difficult questions and to reach and express their own conclusions.

“The judgment in this case effectively punishes us for doing just that. In the meantime, the College will continue to focus on bridging divides in our community and pursuing academic excellence, because an intellectually vibrant Oberlin makes a difference for good in our community and in the world.”