Eagle1993

This AP story includes a quote from the first mediator and why he resigned. Carey refused comment. Another mediator, Paul Finn, resigned three weeks ago. Finn told The Associated Press afterward that he resigned because of “philosophical differences that have existed for some time with other parties and can no longer be reconciled.” https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/nation-world/national/article256415931.html

A couple of quick updates from the docket today: The judge granted TCC's request to shorten the time notice period regarding the request to have AIS provide their claimants a single summary stating the various law firm's views. The hearing will be Dec 14. https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/9b4fd7cb-ba8a-4818-ae3d-6ca81d2e3694_7612.pdf TCC Townhall Dec 9 ... they will cover voting extension, communication between TCC/counsels, mediation update and their goals. https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/3296e7df-f694-408d-a5c2-d7ae47a64a5e_7613.pdf

TCC has withdrawn their request for an ombudsman for voting and agreed that no further delay is required. They are pushing the judge to require AIS law firms to submit a single coordinated letter to their clients. https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/05872c48-7a98-426a-b467-cdf731af043b_7601.pdf

Sounds like the coalition canceled their Townhall tonight.

It could explain why she seems so upset. Not emotional, but clearly not happy with having to take action. She found his name in the 620 page supplement BSA filed November 30. She must have read that entire document as no one objected to Carey. Very impressive.

If bankruptcies have momentum, today seemed like a big swing to the TCC. A coalition lawfirm lost their fight to keep some of their communications sealed. They fought hard and even had AVA (who seems to do nothing in this case) file agreements. The judge ruled against them. Then to see the BSA be slapped for using a mediator in their plan .. can't be good for them. I'll be curious to see if we see the reason KR fought so hard to keep them private. If I were to guess what is happening based on the last few hearings. Vote is not going BSA's way. If it were, they would NOT have delayed the deadline. The schedule was critical to them ... and now they are open to delays? In addition, do I really think Coalition lawyers would be calling up no votes and spending 20-30 minutes begging one person to vote yes if the vote was going well? I expect the total votes coming in (including master ballots) is very low. This would follow other similar cases. In addition, the votes coming in are not at the 66%+ needed (which is why the are spending a LOT of time with individual claimants. Meditation with TCC is picking up and improving. I expect that means the local council contribution may be back on the table (I don't see much more from National). There have been multiple references to mediation starting to go well. It was mentioned at the TCC townhall. It was mentioned today in court. The judge is calling balls & strikes ... and just called two strikes on the BSA/Coalition. Will KR now start stepping back knowing his communications, even going forward, could easily end up on the court docket? Will he start being concerned about keeping a law license given complaints that are starting to be filed in PA? Mediators are now pretty much out of the picture ... so it seems like it will be Mono vs Mono (BSA vs TCC). Remember, the mediator who seemed to question the direction previously resigned ... it seems like mediator change was against the BSA.

She was clearly upset. Note that NO ONE brought this up ... she found it and ruled on her own. It wasn't even on the agenda. It seemed to be a clear shot across the bow of BSA & Coalition. They probably need to relook at who is leading the Trust right now. That will cause some questions later on.

Hearing is done. Silence.

Kevin J Carey ... was appointed was approved instead of Mr. Green. Judges MUST disqualify themselves if their impartiality is in question. Judge is NOT HAPPY with Mr. Carey. Having him as the initial special reviewer, she thought about terminating mediation. There is 1 mediator left. Parties can continue outside of mediation. Mr. Carey is OUT> Good for the judge.

Plan supplement filed Nov 30, Exhibit I ... identifies initial special reviewer. That was never part of any discussion. Kevin J Carey ... one of the mediators. NOPE ... she is rejecting that selection. Mediation neutrality is under question by the judge. Carey now as a stake on the outcome of the mediation. Uh Oh.

Judge ruling on AVA & KR request to keep their communication sealed. Judge ruled against them. Tim Kosnoff's deposition will not be sealed. The client waived privilege she said and Kosnoff had clear evidence of them waving privilege. She believes the clients gave informed consent. Kosnoff specifically asked the clients to waive privilege. This does not mean it is waived in other documents that could be found in future discovery. This means we will see the emails referenced. No claw back. Others can now use this as they need. There could be legal/ethics issues ... but that is for the future.

I think the U.S. Trustee objected to the plan, but didn't object to the vote. His main objection was against electronic communication only (he demanded paper be mailed). I expect the U.S. Trustee has decided the plan (or at least aspects of the plan) is not acceptable and is ready to argue about it during confirmation. Now, since the judge sent the plan for vote, I expect she is ready to accept this plan (or at least the structure of it) if it gets a major yes vote even over the U.S. Trustee's objections.

First ... I'm shocked that the judge allowed the voting to push out but the objection dates to remain. That doesn't seem right. I remember she questioned the old dates as being a tight timeline between vote & confirmation ... this smells a bit fishy. Second ... ER sounds like he is very concerned if this is released ... I wonder what he is hiding.

Could you explain? Is the judge upset? Was this during the hearing or just the docket?

Did they push out all dates 2 weeks?

Again, if the numbers were smaller (like 5% of the claims) I think it could likely be ignored. I don't think they would sway the vote and would probably take a very small portion of the money. I definitely could see a small percent, even after working with lawyers, wouldn't be able to narrow down some details. I am now very concerned as it seems like this number may be much larger. I also expect that some law firms didn't do much if any vetting of the claims (or even help fill them out). A good lawyer would have sat down with the claimant. Asked questions about where they lived/grew up/went to school/etc. Eventually, you probably have enough info to add in a council at minimum. Eventually, even COs, unit numbers, etc. The areas I think must be questioned right now. 1) The $3500 payment. It will be good to see how many are taking that $3500. Lets say 50,000 take the $3500 payment. That is $175M. To me, that is too much. That payment should be $1.5K or less. 2) Voting ... I think those taking the immediate payment should be considered a separate class. I expect those not taking the $3500 are probably more likely to have valid claims and perhaps indicate where the true abusers stand in relation to the settlement. 3) Law firms with claims without basic info should be questioned and perhaps punished if found to be signing off on unvetted claims. If you are a law firm with 18,000 claims .... you should be hiring enough lawyers to sit down with every one of your claimants to discuss their case and claims. I really think some law firms got in over the heads on this and are not managing the case at all ... and now are just looking to get out with a quick payout.

I do question if all of these should have the same voting value. 1) .Really, someone who was abused and impacted cannot provide a date range on when they were a youth? 2) One would think they could at minimum provide a city/town/state. That info + date range would give a LC. 38,663 seems incredibly high. Yes, I can imagine a few ... youth that moved a lot ... that would struggle with this. But 46% of the claims don't have enough data to provide a council? 3) I'm sure that could happen. I'm also sure rosters could be lost. 4/5) Agreed; however, the LCs also stated they ensured everyone they looked through ALL of there rosters and already identified who was listed on one. At first I had always thought perhaps 5-10% were fraudulent. However, I'm starting to question the law firms, in take process and many of these claims. How many people saw the late night advertisements, thought what the heck and submitted a claim? If no one truly vetted these, perhaps we are talking 50% range of questionable claims. 1) I have an issue that even if they only take the $3500, that is a LARGE amount of the funding that is going away from real victims. 2) Those votes should not count. Only real victims should have their votes counted. Again ... 5% on rosters, only 54% can even identify enough info to locate a council ... those should be red flags. They shouldn't get $3,500 with no questions asked and they shouldn't be able to vote.

Thanks for the background, and the BSA was definitely clear they did all of the review of files that they have and the councils did as well. Part of this was legitimate questioning. I think the other part is just Century causing trouble. Sometimes I think Century's lawyer is a bit like the Blues Brothers when they were recruiting Alan Rubin. Tanc is simply there to create cahos, causing extra hearings, pontificating, jumping in on arguments he isn't a party to. I expect in mediation, he is telling BSA and the Coalition ... "If you say no, I will file requests morning, noon and night, every day of the week."

Short TCC call today. They introduced Richard Pachulski, emphsized votes are due at Omni by December 14, 4:00PM and their recommendation is to vote no ... but everyone should vote regardless of their decision. They also mentioned that mediation is ongoing ... so perhaps good news that TCC is back in mediation. There was some mention of some optimism on where mediation is headed; however, there is no agreement and nothing is in writing/plan yet. To me, this is actually really good news. I expect this first plan to fail, so for BSA to exit any time soon, they need an agreement with the TCC. Perhaps we are starting to see some movement. TIme will tell.

No. They are saying that they looked through all of their rosters and only found 5% of the claimants (number from Baltimore Area Council). They said they have too many rosters to scan them in. I think 5% is far lower than the actual end number. However, one would think those not on rosters may be asked a few more questions. I definitely believe there are many abuse victims who would not show up on rosters. However, it seems possible many claims are simply people looking for a check who were not abused. That is not fair to anyone involved. If that was 5-10% of claims … probably not worth the time. However, this data is starting to show that percent of false claims may be a lot larger. I think the judge is open to those interested in seeing if there are large groups of questionable claims and if they are focused in some law firms.

Reminder for those interested

I think the concern being raised is that if councils purged records, then councils would simply say they don't have roster information. Instead, councils are saying they do have rosters, they have 5% of the claimants found, and in fact, they have so much data from rosters they don't have the man power to scan in all of the records to provide Century. Century's lawyer said in court ... so, what you are telling me, is that only 5% of claimants are showing up PLUS you have a ton of roster data (hundreds of thousands, etc.) to the point that you cannot scan them all in. The council said yes. Century's lawyer then said no backies when it comes confirmation time .. .the judge stepped in and said that would be hard for them to undo that statement now that they made it in court. Century made it clear. In every case in state court, BSA would start by finding the individual in their rosters, find the offender in their rosters, perhaps even find incident reports. They are wondering why BSA is not doing that in bankruptcy. Here is the point Century will make. The BSA knows the majority of these claims are likely false. Probably not 95% ... but a very high percentage (think 50 - 75%). The BSA and councils are only offering a small dollar settlement, not because that is all they can afford (especially councils), but because they know most of the claims are false. In addition, BSA is using the $3500 payment to buy votes from many of the false claims. All of this is done to get a plan approved quickly with the lowest settlement they can. However, when they are promising other companies money (such as Century) they are saying to assume all or most of the claims are real. Century just wants to be on the same playing field as BSA ... if 75% of the claims are false, then Century only wants to talk to the 25% of the real claims. This is why Century and other insurance companies are going after law firms and aggregators. They know they are on the hook for claims post plan and want to clear out questionable claims prior to plan confirmation.

What I found very interesting was the following point. BSA councils are saying that they cannot even find the vast majority of claimants on their rosters. They are also saying they have so many rosters from that time period they cannot possibly scan them all in. Century is preparing some big hits during plan confirmation

Judge ruling on various discovery .... believes that it should proceed including information into the $3500 and how the claims were vetted. Most of the requests do not implicate privilege info, or they may, but discovery could be not privilege . In general, how the claims were obtained/vetted are likely not protected by privilege. She is opening up advertising, intake, proof of claim, how it was done ... pretty much everything.