An Idaho college owes a local coffee shop owner $4 million after a jury ruled she lost her contract over a dispute over her public support of law enforcement.
Sarah Fendley was awarded $3 million on September 13 for loss of business, damage to reputation, mental and emotional distress, and personal humiliation, and an additional $1 million in punitive damages against a specific school employee.
The money comes from Boise State University, after a jury found that the school violated the First Amendment rights of the owner of Big City Coffee.
She originally filed a lawsuit for $10 million after thin blue line stickers she placed outside her campus location sparked a student backlash, which attorneys said occurred during protests organized in response to the killing of George Floyd.
Fendley was forced to close within a year and later claimed the school terminated her contract because of her support for the police. The jury agreed.
Scroll down for the video:
An Idaho school owes a local coffee shop owner $4 million after a dispute over her open support for law enforcement.
Sarah Fendley was awarded $3 million on September 13 for lost business, reputational damage, mental and emotional distress, and personal humiliation, and an additional $1 million in punitive damages from a specific school employee
“I am grateful to the 12-member jury who unanimously returned a verdict in my favor,” Fendley, who wept as the verdict was read, said in a statement to KTVB.
“I am grateful that they spent three weeks of their lives handling my case.
‘It’s been almost four years since I was removed from the Boise State campus, and my attorney, Mike Roe, said it best in his closing argument to the jury: ‘This case is not about liberal versus conservative, black versus white, gay versus straight.”
“It’s not even about anti-police versus pro-police,” she continued.
“It’s about highly educated, highly paid government officials running the largest university in Idaho, brutally beating a small businesswoman because they didn’t care about her. That was easier than doing the right thing.”
“In that abuse,” she said, “they violate [my] “The right to freedom of speech and expression, enshrined in the First Amendment.”
In a statement also sent to KTVB, Keely Duke, the attorney representing the school, said, “We respectfully but strongly disagree with today’s verdict and plan to appeal. We respected the First Amendment rights of everyone involved.”
Duke, meanwhile, also represented two BSU administrators: former Vice President for Student Affairs and Enrollment Management Leslie Webb and Chief Financial Officer and Vice President for Finance and Operations Alicia Estey.
The money comes from Boise State University, after a jury found the school violated the First Amendment rights of the owner of Big City Coffee
The latter testified as the last witness on Friday after In 2020, she hastily called a meeting with Fendley to warn her about the social media “storm” her post had caused and the lawsuit the company owner had filed.
Estey also secretly recorded much of the meeting. Hours before the meeting began, she and other executives drafted a press release announcing the company’s departure from campus, Fendley’s attorney said.
This, he said, made it clear that she and Webb had only one goal in mind: to give in to the demands of angry student activists.
Estey responded Friday, saying, “We didn’t retaliate against her at all.
“She made the choice to leave, and that was her choice,” she continued. “There was no retaliation.”
Big City’s campus store closed four days after the rally, after student activists criticized Fendley and her store online.
“I hope you guys don’t go there if you really support your bi-racial classmates and other students, staff, and faculty,” one student posted on Snapchat at the time, using an acronym that refers to Black and Indigenous people, as well as people of color.
Fendley, who was engaged to a former Boise police officer who was paralyzed in a shootout, responded with her own public posts on Facebook and Instagram, reiterating her support for police.
Fendley, who was forced to close in 2021 after the school terminated its contract, wept as the verdict was read, originally seeking $10 million from the school.
This happened after the thin blue line stickers she had placed outside the campus location led to a backlash from students
Shortly thereafter, her contract with the school was terminated, prompting her to file a lawsuit that has since been resolved.
The jury awarded her an additional $1 million in damages from Webb, who argued that as the school’s former vice president of student affairs, it was her job to listen to students.
She now works as an administrator at the University of Montana.
At the time of writing, it is unclear whether the university, the insurance company, or Webb and Estey themselves in their personal capacities will pay for the damages.