Eagle1993

He sounded like a man who bit off more than he can chew. He talked about the bills. The travel. His Covid battle and the fact his mom died of Covid. I’m sorry, but this is not about him. Why did he take 15 minutes of the judges time to explain how hard he worked?

Best line ... I wasn't prepared to talk and then went on reading a paper for 10 minutes. Stang is destroying him right now.

If I remember correctly, the TCC plan as explained to me would rely on a combination of settlements & state court trials. Basically, the trustee of the settlement would take cases from the settlement and sue insurance companies in state court. As they win cases, it would lay the foundation on a settlement. It would take longer, but likely get to a fair settlement. It sounds like the current plan took a different approach.

Insurance just wants delays. Lets say 59,000 are removed (I'm not 100% convinced as many could all file in NY/NJ using their SOL as BSA was HQ there for a while). Then lets say 20% of the remaining are false. That leaves 20,000 claims. Lets assume all still end up in bankruptcy court. Per BishopAccountability.org the average settlement is $268K. $5.3B . Rough math ... BSA's current offer is $2B and I don't expect much more coming from them ... most would come from insurance. So, insurance companies already include $750M and they would have to make up the $3.3B incremental ... so about $4B. That assumes the insurance companies are correct. My guess, if the other side is patient, that $4B would be much, much greater. So, why would they delay if the end result is likely a higher payment then the current deal they could strike. My guess is that they think by delaying, the other side will negotiate a lower settlement offer so insurance stops objecting. If the other side was willing to wait it out, insurance would likely have to pay >>>>$ than the current settlement.

I understand you will not have 82,500 unique calculations; however, you know where many claims are occurring, if they are LDS or not (or unknown), what state, SOL impacts, type of abuse, etc. You should be able to make a range for many of these claims. Again, when I voted on the pension deal, it was a very specific value $XX,XXX but even then, it included statements that this was the best estimate at this time ... blah, blah, blah. While I don't think you can do this in the BSA case, you should be able to give a range with caveats. The range of $3.5K to $2.7M is just meaningless.

I have been involved in a few larger lawsuits. In all cases, I was given information on what my specific settlement would be if the deal was agreed to. Some cases they were mass tort and my payout was a small coupon. In one case, it was a complex pension case where each individual had a specific unique settlement number (the final actually came in a bit higher than what we voted on). This was in the range of $40K and while I wasn't physically abused, it was a serious case where I wanted to ensure the settlement was fair. I do not understand how claimants could be asked to vote on a deal when given a range of $3,500 to $2,700,000. While there will always be a range, you need to give a more reasonable range. I would expect my lawyer to tell me a much more narrow range (at minimum, keep it to an order of magnitude). $0 - $10K ... $10 - $99K ... $100 - $999K ... $1 - 9M. The fact that the coalition is ok with giving a $3.5K to $2.7M range shows they don't care about their claimants. They remind me of the lawyers that sue credit card companies, Facebook, etc. and get their claimants $5 and rake in $100Ms of fees. Typically I'm just annoyed by them as most "claimants" in the other lawsuits have limited damages. This is different. Gathering a bunch of men who were raped as kids so you can collect $100Ms+ and give them $3,500 - $10K is horrible. It is sickening. The fact that BSA lawyers are colluding with them vs working with the TCC makes me question the honor in the BSA. I hope the judge ensures there is some methods for claimants to determine their likely payout. Otherwise, I don't understand why we are even seeking a vote.

I would be shocked if the judge allows this. She seemed interested in collecting the data with the ballot given the concerns the TCC/others raised. The only reason she removed other proposals from the ballot (i.e. council) was that you could do the analysis later during plan confirmation. Without the $3500 selection, you wouldn't be able to do that. BSA was OK with this during the hearing but changed their minds later. I wonder why.

I person like the 1952 to 1965 stent where you found your own path outside the first 10. In addition you can make sure there is a diverse skill set earned and only some merit badges qualify in those groups. I feel the system is broken, the current list is boring for many scouts and it emphasizes classrooms vs activities. Im not saying the below is perfect (from 1952) but it is much closer to where we should go vs where we are today Camping, Cooking, Firemanship, First Aid, Life Saving, Nature, Personal Fitness, Public Health, Safety, Swimming, one from the Outdoor Sports group, one from any of the following groups - Animal Husbandry, Plant Cultivation, Communication, Transportation, or Building, one from the Conservation group, three from the Citizenship group.

My understanding is that if you vote Yes AND selected $3500 ... as soon as the plan is approved (and the money is in the account) you should get your $3500. I don't think it removes your right to vote and if the plan changes substancially, I wonder if you could change your mind. For example, there is no guarantee the $3500 remains and is in the final plan. I think there are going to be several cross tabs on this vote. - Overall vote % - Vote by LC - Vote by CO - Vote by $3500/total claim If the total vote is 99%, none of the above will matter. If it is closer to 66%, I expect there will be fights to show how only those taking $3500 approved the plan. Or that only xx% of councils were approved. It seems to open up avenues to fight the plan even if it achieves >66% of the total claimant vote.

If the ballot will collect this info then I agree they will push this to reviewing the vote/plan confirmation.

The question is .. how will she know which individuals plan to take the $3500. It sounds like BSA doesn't want to know that until plan approval. You need to know that before plan approval. So the ballot must include that info.

Beat me by 1 minute on posting this update. I think this is a HUGE deal. If the judge allows this, BSA may be screwed and realize the vote is likely to fail. I wonder if the judge rules in favor if BSA asks for a pause on the plan to renegotiate. I see 0% chance that those who don't take the $3,500 quick pay out vote. While it is likely they get 100% of those votes who simply want the fast payout, they would need at least 66% of the votes of those who want a full settlement. It sounds like the judge agreed to this (as did BSA) during the hearing. Now BSA lawyers are probably realizing the impact. This could be a non issue if the judge denies the request.... so we should know tomorrow as it can't be put off until confirmation of the plan.

The insurance companies want to drag this out so I don't necessarily believe their timeline, but I have to agree the BSA schedule is very aggressive unless 100% of parties are in alignment and the hearings are essentially rubber stamps outside a few objections. With the TCC and many claimant attorneys not on board in addition to most COs & insurance companies ... I just do not see how BSA's timeframe is met.

That was a link. Click on the picture and it will take you to the other thread.

They need to cut one or multiple Eagle Requirement MBs if they add this. I would be ok if it would be added to a Citizenship MB collection and you have to earn 2 of 4. If they do that, I think 7 months would be fine . I feel our required MB program skews to the book/class room type merit badges and this is going to make it worse.

All ... some of the discussions here drifted from the original topic. So, if it seemed best to move those to the other thread linked above. If the posts were more closely linked to this specific bankruptcy case, I kept it here.

I guess I'll add my hunch. If the vote comes back as 95% approval ... I think we exit with the plan as voted on. It may have minor changes, but I bet the judge will say ... the claimants clearly support the plan, who am I to refuse. With 95%, it is likely most if not all council and major CO subgroups probably passed the plan. I think many of these issues will become sticky the lower that vote percentage is.

Agreed. There are so many issues that could substantially change the final plan that I question why they are proceeding with the vote first. I wonder if the judge has to determine if the plan has substantially changed thus requiring a new vote. One would think: step 1 - Ensure claims are valid (or at least do some sort of minimal vetting) step 2 - Discovery to ensure full transparncy of costs, assets, etc. step 3 - finalize a disclosure statement & plan ... something that is 95 - 99% done and ready step 4 - vote on said plan step 5 - agree on vote outcome, minor changes to plan if needed, release from bankruptcy It seems like we are: step 1 - create a decent outline of a plan/disclosure step 2 - vote on said plan step 3 - discovery step 4 - agree on vote outcome, major changes to plan step 5 - vet claims I really don't understand it, but perhaps that is how it is suppose to work. No wonder bankruptcies seem to take forever.

Will we get to see Mosby & Kosnoff Tuesday?

Note that the Ad Hoc committee for the councils stated they do not agree with this proposal. Now a very strong and well versed claimant attorney seemed to have some bankruptcy/case law on his side saying it must work this way. This will be fought over during confirmation. So basically, the current plan & disclosure will ignore this possibility as will the ballots. However, during confirmation, the judge may end up siding with the plaintiff lawyers. That means ... each council could be released individually based upon the votes of the claimants within their council. What gets messy ... would the councils still have to pay? Likely not as most have only agreed to pay if they get the injunction. So basically, councils could fall off the list, state lawyers could sue them and the settlement trust would decrease by that council amount. I think councils/BSA are likely concerned as those who put in their council names are probably the same claimants that are probably closer to the actual case and may be more likely to vote against the deal. A very large number of claimants haven't even claimed a council. So the group who's vote would be counted on a council by council basis would be a smaller subset of the overall vote and my guess more likely to reject the deal.

To be clear, the proposal was that every ballot would be customized to include the council name or a blank to fill in the council. The judge denied the request. The ballots will go out without the council name and without the ability to filli n the council. The judge was concerned that claimants would get confused, thinking by filling in the council name on the ballot they would think they updated their claim. In addition, all of this data will be available through Omni, so Omni will be able to report votes by council (and CO) without even including it on the ballot. Any party could then request that info via discovery. It seemed like all sides were ok with that (at least they didn't scream and yell).

I would always recommend checking with your lawyer. This forum is definitely not meant to serve as any sort of official notification. Many items here are opinion, others are ongoing updates from the court (that may not be final decisions) and we are sometimes wrong. With that said.. No requests for votes have been sent yet. There is a hearing Sept 28th. If everything stays on track, voting requests could go out ~October 6 and the judge has stated (at this point) 60 days to vote. Again, these dates/times can change, so stay in touch with your lawyer.

I think this cannot be understated. We car camp, but we also have at least two backpacking camping trips a year and have a high adventure camping trip each year. Most of our scouts don't participate in these. We also get more adult support on car camping trips than backpacking. Actually, I think you can become Eagle Scout without a single backpacking camping outing. I may be wrong, but I don't think there is a single requirement to carry camping gear for any amount of distance.

It seems like we diverted the topic a bit, but figure I'll jump in. I've been happy that our schools crack down on bullying and they are also very clear that bullying is different than being rude/unkind/having conflicts. Overall, schools are much more aware of actual bullying than they were when I was a kid. For many kids, our school systems have become much more safe than it was in the 1980s and prior. I do agree that there are overreactions by parents ... but schools seem to have found a balance and have been pretty good (at least in my area). What has gotten much, much worse is the form harassment takes when it occurs. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. In some ways, it is much worse now than we were kids (at least to me). When someone was bullied at school in the 1980s/1990s it ended when they left school and went home. There is no escaping the harassment today and it is public for all of your classmates to see 24/7. I think more needs to be done to protect kids (and in some cases adults) in terms of social media postings.

US Trustee was a bit spicy today and he held his own. I don't think he was joking about BSA filing Chapter 7. His point ... if you do not have enough cash to work your way through Chapter 11 by following the law, you need to reconsider filing for Chapter 7. Basically, you can't rush this and undercut law by saying you are out of money. You always have the option to liquidate.