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Just passed the five-months-from-oral-arguments that the Trustee’s indicated was the average time for a ruling from the Sixth Circuit. https://scoutingsettlementtrust.my.salesforce.com/sfc/p/#Dp0000016pkB/a/Uu000002c92j/T9hQYKF8KkVWWap2jPhb24vEUq0JduWSxLZZcZOAydk

For all reading, including you, @skeptic, you can work through the suffering and trauma! It is difficult, but let that be a goal for all of us. Please do not let statements like this knock you off your path to a better life. Do money settlements help? Without introducing everyone here to a different forum, there are definitely people that have said it does. And who knew that best and for decades? BSA. I've considered what you've said before about BSA having similar or better controls in place than other entities. They knew it was continuing to happen, so, to me, the worst inclination is letting it happen to protect an institution. When my abuser was arrested, there were a few articles in the local paper quoting Scout exec's saying things like "there are controls in place," "we are vigilant," "this is extremely rare," etc. This was two years after a different SM was arrested for CSA in the same council. The human animal really does fail badly at times.

In addition, the Trustee has sued insurance companies that have not settled. You can see at the link below that there are two parts. https://scoutingsettlementtrust.my.salesforce.com/sfc/p/#Dp0000016pkB/a/Uu000002c92j/T9hQYKF8KkVWWap2jPhb24vEUq0JduWSxLZZcZOAydk My recollection is that one of the town halls indicated the value was up to $4B.

April 1 update: average $534,599 per TDP claim. For the Expedited Distribution, 99% claims determined and 92% paid (6,036 claims) For the TDP, 39% claims determined and 19% paid (58,088 claims) For the IRO, 17% claims determined and 5% paid (230 claims... not all of which are finalized like the ED and TDP) If the Trust were to stop here, just based on claims paid amounts (not determined)... they would need just shy of $6B.

I think that's partially due to the Trust itself. The guesstimates also rarely note how the IRO is funded wrt to these potential future amounts... and how that affects the matrix amount. (I made this mistake in a post, too, and had to go back and look at it.) Sorry to read about your change in optimism but definitely understand it.

March 1 update: average $516,443 per claim. If that average holds (which it likely won't), the Trust would need a little over $30B... but what's $2B more than the last calculation? There was a bankruptcy data set with 43k entries that I used to estimate that the average would be about $240,000 if the matrix base amount was used. That would need a Trust of about $14B (or the other way, would fund about 20%). It could still be that high value claims are being processed faster but also that the upward scaling factors are outweighing the downward scaling ones.

February 1 update: $498,645 per claim for 58,026 claims.

I am certain they did and hard to square with the Trustee’s statements about transparency. If we had the same information they do (on a confidential basis same as was given in the bankruptcy), we could get a maximum, minimum and likely average very quickly. I think it was before the final vote that we could look at the numbers and already know that it was less than 50% funded with very conservative estimates. A major mis-step (or, conspiracy theory: purposeful approach) was that the Boy Scouts presented an expert who said it would be 100% funded and there was no evidence rebutting that, so in the certification the Judge said I’m relying on the only evidence that was presented. I’m not sure what will happen, but agree that an acceptable outcome to me is getting real money paid out quickly.

Too soon to estimate what the claims values will be vs how the Trust is funded? Maybe (and I listed some possible reasons why below) but as of January 1, 90% of the expedited distributions have been paid (at full value) and 10% of the matrix claims have been paid (at 1.5% value). Like the expedited distributions, the IRO is somewhat less important to the matrix but 2% of claims have been paid (also at 1.5% value). Current average expedited per claim: $3,284 * 6,027 claims = about $20MM Current average matrix per claim: $484,254 * 57,953 claims = a little over $28B Calculated as: ($42,268,754 paid out minus $698,000 advanced payments) divided by 5,723 disbursements = $7,264 per claim on a 1.5% payment (or a full share of $484,254). Same for the IRO below but no advanced payment adjustment. Current average IRO per claim: $900,000 * 275 total claims = about $250MM. Add it all up and it's... a little over $28B. The last estimate I saw was the the Trust had about $2.5B but let's say the Trustee gets really good returns on everything to make the math easy with $2.8B and it's looking like it's 10% funded. Maybe the Trustee also settles with a bunch of insurers adding another $2.8B to the Matrix and then it would be about 20% funded. Btw, disallowed claims are running less than 1% at this point. _________ One of the bankruptcy documents had a breakdown of votes, class and open/grey/closed designations. Assuming the matrix base amount for each class, the average claim based on that mix would have been $218,143 or half of the current average. Here some reasons why the current average might be higher than the final: claimants with a higher claim class were more likely to file timely claimants with a higher expected claim due to scaling factors were more likely to file timely law firms prioritized higher expected claims first in order to speed up payments they would receive claimants with the most documentation (and so maybe the more egregious cases) are more easily processed The Trust is finding more evidence of upward scaling factors than downward The percentage of disallowed claims will increase as the Trust asks for more information and it takes longer for these types of claims to be evaluated Anything else I'm missing? If the claims even out more to base levels with a similar mix as was in the bankruptcy document, the Trust would be 20-40% funded. Lastly, the trust noted that 25% of matrix claims were determined as of January 23rd. They also noted that $70MM has been paid to approximately 12,300 survivors (across all classes). Here's a back of the envelope estimate: assuming the great majority of those in January were matrix claims, since the last update 9.9MM was paid to about 1,150 claimants at 1.5%... for an average claim amount of $573,913 at about 12% of matrix claims processed. It seems at least for the next update, there won't be much of a downward change in the average claim amount. Incorporating this into the overall averages: $499,256 per claim for 57,953 claims = a little less than $29B.

Duh... that is what I meant to write. I was trying to make the point that it would typically be better for folks to have their lawyers do as much as possible from a cost perspective.

Aren't most lawyers working on a contingency where it would be better for them to do more hours? That’s the complaint I’ve heard from survivors: that they can’t get a response or have their attorney do anything for them.

Sadly some of this is because of an older population and it has taken four plus years to get to this point. There were also duplicates, etc. The Trustee said that some attrition was inevitable but it was higher than she expected. I'm not sure if this is exactly what you are suggesting, but 31% is not representative of claimants scared away by scrutiny.

Yes there will be higher payouts but I don't think anyone believes it's fully funded.

Per the latest Trust update: A little over 82,000 proofs of claim were initially submitted. Currently, approximately 7,300 chose the expedited distribution and 317 chose the independent review option. These options are now closed. For the matrix, approximately 56,000 claims were received before the deadline. There may be some late claims allowed but probably won't move these numbers too much. So in the neighborhood of 65,000 claims total.

I see this idea often, not just from @HICO_Eagle “The BSA would have done something if only the abused kid would testify.” First, that’s pretty classic blame the victim. Second, in my case in the 90’s, an ASM did raise concerns and was told it was fine and the YP rules were being followed. After several years of abuse I did testify, on my own with the support of my family and zippo from BSA. So it’s always frustrating to read that because in the instance I know, the exact opposite happened. I doubt I’m one in a 100 thousand. On balance wouldn’t it have been much much better to have been sued for defamation from a false accusation and erred on the side of protecting kids?

Now we are talking about BSA in general. You are way off on the homosexual vs bisexual comment. The great majority of pedophiles are heterosexual. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1556756/ On whether the Boy Scouts did their best... I don't think I can add anything that will change your mind but note that your description of how an SE or TCC would have analyzed the situation has no mention of doing the right thing and is all about liability and reputation.

You misunderstood what I was saying: my recent posts are not about one single instance.

And from the Boy Scouts who very prominently purportedly hold themselves to a higher standard!

It is pretty clear that the topic is about BSA’s culpability in general. You make an over arching conclusion about that… in the same post where you say you were only talking about one specific example and the goalposts were being moved.

The BSA doesn’t think so: "There have been instances where people misused their positions in Scouting to abuse children, and in certain cases, our response to these incidents and our efforts to protect youth were plainly insufficient, inappropriate, or wrong," https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2012/10/boy_scout_perversion_files_off.html

That is exactly what happens for most of the lawyers. They get a percentage of the distribution. @Eagle1970Thanks for sharing and sorry to hear that. The state by state difference is terrible.

For you, maybe. Some survivors (including myself) do find on balance that it is healing. It got me back to therapy and there will be some sort of finality. How many people actually post in this thread regularly, 20? Are even half of those stating they were abused in BSA? It's just such a small representation of the number of victims. I'm glad to see @Bzzyadding a voice and it's crushing to know this is not the case for everyone. That was me for a good portion of the bankruptcy process (mad at the underfunding, inequity of distribution, the lousy lawyers, the amount of time, etc.) That some victims will find some peace through and around this process is a good thing. The Boy Scouts could have done this better and there would have been more positive outcomes.

That’s not really fair, especially after a post from a survivor saying he thought it would bring a measure of peace. It’s a big mess and about protecting assets and making money for lawyers, etc. but it’s not only the bad parts.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/0q1ox20xqw5mmzjz4i5im/a3fa6777-ba03-42a0-a73b-5c9a90600938_2022-03-11_FINAL_REDACTED_Supplemental_LC_and_CO_Voting_Report.xlsx?rlkey=t7x65kvcmqmypuvp5zhedg4tl&dl=0 That is the excel sheet that was provided after the vote that was accepted. I don’t recall whether the question was for current council or at time of abuse. There’s a lot of empty cells and it only reflects the data from people that voted… but maybe you can use it.

Hey @Ojoman, I know you’re tapping out and I’ve done the same at times so I’m just using your post as a jumping off point. I’ve learned a lot in this forum both confirming and disproving what I thought previously. Here is my (and everyone’s) actual recent experience: the Boy Scouts negotiated around and waited to implement YP measures during the lengthy bankruptcy process. My point of view is that this indicates that they are not always acting in good faith and they err in balancing their desire to protect their brand over preventing abuse.