elitts

I kind of thought this drive to pass look-backs would fade fairly quickly when people started connecting the dots and imagined what could happen when school districts and state governments started getting sued. It's only a matter of time until someone tries suing a state government over "campus rapes allowed by permissive, state-run schools, who abdicated their duty to protect their students". I have to think that most LCs have insurance policies of their own to protect against losses due to lawsuits. (I know mine does) I mean, they are poorly enough run that I can easily believe some Councils don't, because they thought "they were covered by national", but I have to hope that would be a rarity. I'm curious to know if the awards will be adjusted for time for those people who were abused decades ago. It would seem like they probably should, but who knows. Also, if we are talking about awards in the situation of a bankruptcy, it would seem like a more realistic target would be the roughly $290k that the Catholic Church has averaged. Yes, This has been repeated ad nauseam by another poster. The problem with this little saying is that we aren't talking about some mountain of past precedent spanning the last 50 years that would need to be set aside; rather, pretty much all you are talking about are a couple dozen Catholic Church bankruptcies since 2004. Given the scope of this one, it would be a pretty easy thing for a judge to say "This is a functionally different situation than the past CSA bankruptcies". Unless of course you can point out some situations where bankruptcy judges actually denied discharge when an agreement couldn't be reached?

No, they can't be used effectively in a direct comparison with statistical modelling with a provable level of reliability. However, that doesn't mean they don't provide useful data points for very rough comparisons. Regardless of the fact that there is a BSA National, each of the BSA troops/packs/crews truly is a discrete organization. The way they operate, the level of supervision and the rules they actually observe all vary drastically between groups, regardless of the fact that they are supposed to be operating in mostly the same way.

I've argued this point before. There's plenty of actual evidence showing that the incidence of child sexual abuse is much higher among the general population than it is within Scouting (based upon known cases in Scouting). Here is the quickest one I could find. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4311357/

Actually, I quite like (good) ponchos for hiking and backpacking. For those two applications, I'd much rather have a good poncho than a rain jacket, but I'll admit a significant part of that is the fact that I've always been a sweaty guy and wearing a rain suit while being active doesn't actually keep me dry, it just means I'm soaked from sweat instead of rain. One thing that can make a poncho MUCH more usable around camp is belting it around the waist to make it more of a tunic instead of a big bulky poncho. I used to just use a nylon webbing strap off a duffle bag.

When this topic re-opens I'd like to remind people to read for meaning and not simply react to word choices that might be unfortunate or even accidental. As an example (and not intended to criticize the author), there was a recent post where someone used the word "socialist" and there was an immediate hostile response. However careful reading of the tone and context of the post made it clear that the writer was referring to "sociologist" and was not in fact attempting to bring economic theories or communist threats into the conversation. Also, I'd like to reiterate that in addition to not referring to lawyers using any sort of scavenger terminology or implications, references relating to that whole discussion are also banned as being pointlessly inflammatory. This is the final warning. Anyone active on the thread before this point will be assumed to be aware of the restriction and will simply get a time-out.

I promise that EVERYONE reading this thread understands your view on the issues. The horse is not just dead, it's now nothing more than a stain on the ground with some skin and bones shards mixed in. Though leaving only the small camp wouldn't really be a reasonable compromise. If you've got 14k scouts using 3 camps, while there may well be excess capacity that would allow for some consolidation, you can't take all the scouts from 3 different camps (even half-utilized camps) and cram them into the smallest one.

These are two different issues. The argument for liability for a Sexual Assault has to be that the BSA could have prevented the assault had they taken reasonable preventative steps. Whether or not you think they handled the cases appropriately after being notified has nothing to do with whether or not there were reasonable steps that the BSA should/could have taken that would have prevented the abuse.

Ok, well, I see that we are still having trouble limiting ourselves from the discussion of lawyers. I've gone through and hidden a number of posts when the entire body of the text wasn't acceptable and edited a few more posts when portions of the text were acceptable when other sections weren't. I've also deleted posts and quotes that refer to a post I've hidden. I tried to be even-handed, but if you think I was unfair, please let me know and I'll present the issue for consideration by the other Moderators. In an attempt to avoid having to keep hiding posts, I'll be more specific on what is and is not permitted within this thread. PERMITTED: Factual statements regarding lawyers involved in the bankruptcy; Factual statements regarding attorney fees for the bankruptcy; Discussion of involved attorney actions, statements and filings; NOT PERMITTED: Discussion or comments regarding the fee structure attorneys use; Discussion or comments regarding the legal profession in general; Any comparison of attorneys to any other profession, animal or object; Discussion or commentary regarding the integrity or nature of attorneys beyond specific actions taken by attorneys involved in this case; Any mention of any variety of scavenging animal;

Acting as a Moderator again: Since this is the 3rd or 4th or 5th time we've started in on it, let's put an end to the generalized discussions regarding the pros and cons of lawyers. If future comments aren't very directly related to the bankruptcy case AND discussing something reasonably new, I'm going to just start deleting them. And yes, I know I've made comments myself. I'm not criticizing anyone, I'm just saying we need to be done.

Yes and no. Each year we get an authorizing ordinance passed stating that the city is partnering with us to present an annual festival. That authorization also gets us 50% pricing on all city services. But getting the ordinance isn't directly contingent upon that clause in the bylaws and in fact it used to give all property to the Grand Rapids Arts Council instead. And while we could technically still function without the city ordinance, effectively we could not because doubling the cost of police, streets and other services would make it impossible to afford. So admittedly it isn't a perfect example People can go to court over anything, so the fact that claimants will sue isn't particularly informative. The only way for this concept to hold any water would be for the LC assets to already technically belong to National or for the LCs to be found to be functionally extensions of the BSA national (in which case this argument is moot). Because while bankruptcy courts have wide latitude in reversing property and monetary transactions retroactively, their overall authority isn't unlimited with regard to business decisions in general. Finding that National has an active claim on LC assets would be a very tough road to hoe. What matters for evaluating property ownership is whether or not you have effective control over any of the bundle of rights that accompanies real property. Namely the rights of possession, control, exclusion, enjoyment, and disposition. As things stand, BSA doesn't control or hold any of those rights. If BSA had influence over even just the disposition of assets in the normal course of business, you may have an argument, but from what I can tell, LCs can do with their property what they wish. The fact that there is a potential triggering event that might change those ownership rights has nothing to do with ownership today. Just like the fact that a mortgage lender has the right to foreclose if you don't pay doesn't mean they possess any ownership rights as long as you do pay. So if BSA national doesn't own or control any current interest in the properties titled to LCs, then changing their own bylaws wouldn't be a financial transaction that might be subject to a bankruptcy unwinding. Or if they didn't want to change that bylaw, they could simply grant every current LC and CO a one time 5 year charter extension that is only revocable "for cause".

Generally, it's accepted that if someone makes a statement they believe to be true, it's not a lie, even if they are later proved to be incorrect. So has some documentation been discovered that the BSA knew LCs would be stuck on the hook but wanted to lie to them for some reason, or are you just assuming they must have known? I'd be happy to have that conversation. I'm interested to find out why God feels children need to be raped and murdered. I've been a Tax Assessor for about 20 years now and I can tell you with absolute certainty that this isn't the case. When you are talking about homes or smaller properties where there are a couple dozen fairly similar properties sold within a mile or two each year, yes, you can get that level of accuracy. But with special use properties with limited sales comparables? No way do you get that accurate. I regularly deal with tax appeals where my licensed appraiser's result is different from the petitioner's licenced appraiser by 20, 30 or even 40%. That whole argument is just nonsense. It may sound logical, but actually holds zero water when it comes to property rights. Non-profits are required to include in their bylaws a statement of who gets their assets in the case of dissolution, but this isn't binding and it can be changed at will. I'm a part of a 501c3 that has a clause saying the City of Grand Rapids gets all of our assets if the organization folds up or moves out of state; that doesn't in any way mean Grand Rapids controls the organization or actually has an ownership claim on our assets. And while the BSA may have required LCs to include a bylaw to that effect in order to be chartered, since the BSA can't stop the LC from changing that component of their bylaws, the BSA similarly has no current ownership claim on LC property.

That first comment was entirely directed at CynicalScouter. Though I'll agree that their washing their hands of the insurance companies (saying "you can pursue them") was just wrong. But I don't personally think BSA owes anyone their own funds out of any kind of moral responsibility; if they owe money it's a financial responsibility only. In other words, if they had sufficient insurance funds to entirely pay for their liabilities, I wouldn't view that as them "Getting off scott free" just because they didn't have to pay anything out of pocket. As far as the second point, I was speaking generally about the problems with extended Statutes of Limitations. I don't have any particular problem with the way claims are likely to be handled in the instant case.

Yet again you are implying that the $6000 average per person is the sum total of what a victim would receive when you must know this isn't true. The vast majority of the funds for claims against the BSA were/are always going to be coming from the insurance companies. That is of course the whole reason organizations buy insurance. Disagree with the proposed amount all you wish, but let's not be disingenuous about the whole thing. Yes, but since since the accused in today's world is effectively presumed guilty, the impact is much more significant on the accused than on the accuser. Yes, that's a nice idea. The problem is that many people's belief seems to be that any abuse that occurs must be due to negligence. Disregarding accusations would be negligent, allowing someone to be a scouter with an existing record (or even accusations) of abuse would be negligence, but failing to weed out a predator who has taken deliberate steps to disguise himself and appear harmless? Regardless of what a sympathetic jury thinks, that simply isn't negligence.

Pretty much, they get paid by the minute and are usually evaluated by the billable hours they pull in, so you can see how "concise writers" isn't really what law firm HR departments are shopping for. Not to mention if they made things understandable to a lay-person, they'd be arguing for their own obsolescence.

I'm going to put on my "Moderator" hat here for a second: Directly responding to another member is acceptable and a desirable part of this medium. I even understand that at times, emotions will peak and there might be a response that includes some sarcasm, snark, criticism or even anger; however, responses MUST move the conversation forward. If you find yourself writing a response that includes some of those "negative" feelings, I ask you to do two things. First, wait a few minutes after typing before you post, then re-read your writing and make sure it really reflects what you want to say. Second, make sure that you explain yourself and the reasons for your response and if applicable, provide an opposing view to the comment you object to. If you can't be bothered to explain why you think someone said something foolish, then you have no business posting a comment solely as some sort of a text based eye-roll. Just stick with a reaction instead. ALSO, Let's avoid discussions about other members as it is very easy for things to become "un-Scoutlike" quickly. If you have something to say about their viewpoint or general outlook that is relevant to the topic, fine, but we don't want such things to devolve into a back-and-forth regarding a member rather than the topic. And with that, I'm taking the hat back off again.

Yeah, that belief is certainly in the realm of "squishy". And I still don't know what to make out of the Hartford deal. As someone else mentioned, it's hard to know if it's reasonable without knowing what the overall policy limit is for Hartford, which is hard to know without knowing what the actual liabilities are that would have been covered by the Hartford policies. And I agree, most wouldn't take an 85k deal without a reasonable level of confidence regarding what's left over. But I don't think the confidence they would need is in the idea that "we got every last dollar we could" but rather "we got the majority of what we could, and no one escaped unscathed". Unfortunately there too, developing that confidence is going to require court decisions and I suspect not bankruptcy court decisions because it will involve specific rulings on what is and isn't restricted. I mean, I realize there are people who think the restrictions on Summit and Philmont are "shams", but that's kind of how our system works when it comes to that stuff, so I don't know if that description really applies.

This is one reason I really wish they could just adjudicate now regarding whether or not the LCs are independent. As long as there are people arguing that their assets should be included "in the bankruptcy", this isn't going to be resolved. If there was a decision that they ARE independent, then at least we could move forward with the understanding that their contributions are voluntary and can't be compelled. (obviously if they were ruled to be extensions of national instead, then the whole argument over the assets becomes moot) I realize people still have the option to go forward on the state level, and that's fine. But at least we won't have people holding out on the national bankruptcy because they are still dreaming that the LC assets can be liquidated by court order.

As with almost anything in the world, the cost of 100 things in a package is never the same as 1 thing times 100. So if you independently litigate a case, you might get a multi-million dollar settlement, but when you are part of a class-action, you take a hit, particularly if your situation is on the "worse" end of the scale. The advantage of course is that you aren't stuck litigating on your own. And frankly I do think most of the victims would take an $86k payout and go on their way. (though I doubt you'd hear "thanks") That's enough money to have a significant impact on someone's life in most parts of the country. I don't think it would make them happy, but if it meant they could actually collect in a reasonable period of time? Yeah, I think most of them would take it unless they thought there was something fishy going on with the insurance company contributions. I truly don't think most of the claimants have Kosnoff's dedication to burning down the BSA. So when you start looking at the relatively small increase in the payout pool from a complete liquidation of BSA National vs a Reorganization, I don't think it's going to have the kind of attractiveness that some folks believe it will.

How is that meaningless? Those are exactly the problems that needs to be resolved. The current YP rules leave basically ZERO space for abuse to happen if they are followed. (I suppose maybe a pair of abusers could work together, but that seems unlikely) And the claimants don't have anything that resembles a coherent desire when it comes to YP other than to say "we want to make sure this never happens again", which of course isn't possible. Even when the subject of "What changes do you think should be made" comes up, the suggestions always revolve around reporting, not actual changes in YP guidelines.

Those aren't issues with the Youth Protection policies, those are simply your issues with the BSA. There are two main issues with Youth Protection: Most adults are inclined to trust the other adults around them and can't really imagine abuse happening around them. It is exceedingly difficult to get strict compliance from volunteers, particularly when the behaviors you are trying to control are happening in a dispersed setting.

Most statements you see from victims of almost anything talk about how "it's not about the money". You might be different because you are/were a lawyer and you understand money is really the only option left for you. Any large class action lawsuit is a lawyer's "get rich not-quite-quick scheme". So? As long as it's not legally considered a no-no by the bankruptcy laws, the optics don't matter much since all the options are bad anyway. No, "lawyers who behave like Kosnoff" are vultures, though I would probably not say "evil". If you portray yourself as a crusader for justice and the common good, while taking 40% of the payout finally achieved, you are something else I can't quite define other than to say it's icky and I wouldn't shake hands with it. This is a non-issue. If the LCs are separate organizations all they need to do is amend their bylaws/incorporation documents to remove those clauses and the problem is solved. Obviously that would mean that they wouldn't get rechartered, but if National is in Chapter 7, that's not really an issue is it?

I'm not sure how you got that out of qwazse's post. No one is arguing that the impact on an individual of being raped can be balanced by whatever positive benefit they might have gotten out of the program. Obviously on an personal level, being abused can pretty much outweigh everything else that happens in a kid's life. But the situation isn't as simple as the idea: "If Scouting hadn't happened, kids wouldn't have been raped, so Scouting was/is a failure". I mean, Scouts didn't create pedophiles, it just gave them a target, but in the absence of scouts, one would assume they simply would have looked for alternative ways to access kids. Child rape happens everywhere kids exist and we don't even know if the incidence of abuse is higher in Scouts than it is anywhere else. The harsh truth of life is that there will ALWAYS be a calculus that includes a certain amount of "acceptable losses" for any activity and the incidence of tragedy that people will insist on before they will participate is NOT zero.

Except that this really isn't true. These cases are entirely about finding someone to punish, because in most cases the actual offender isn't punishable and basically all of the victims tell you "it isn't about the money". The general feeling in this country is that for almost anything bad that happens, there has to have been some over-arching villain or problem that caused it or allowed it to happen. I assume this is because people know you can't ever stop bad people (or unfortunate accidents) from existing, so instead they want to try and find some other entity to take action against to make them feel like they have some control and can feel safer. The unfortunate thing is that our legal processes have transformed civil liability in this country from an objective concept that can be independently measured into not much more than formalized extortion. Made worse by the fact that the insurance companies making a profit on the whole thing insist on settlements rather than making people actually prove their case.

If all you were looking for was number of accusations, number of claims filed and stuff like that, it would be much simpler and yes, I'm sure they could tell you that. It's getting enough data into a computer to actually do analysis that gets expensive.

Yeah, you spend the entire time waiting for the proverbial "other shoe" to drop.