Chapter 11 announced

[ParkMan]

7 hours ago, ThenNow said:

As I've tried to be, I'm going to be very transparent. When I read the press coverage and looked at the Plan to confirm the $6000, I cried. If it had been $50,000 I would've felt very differently. I would've believed they were taking this seriously. 

I'm truly sorry that you felt so hurt by the offer. 

$50,000 for 85,000 claimants is $4.25 billion dollars.  I can't imagine that with 85,000 claimants a settlement that high is even possible.

[ThenNow]

4 hours ago, ParkMan said:

Why is this a concern for you?

Initially, I thought about it related to the squeeze being put on you guys via reductions in revenue and all. I was hoping, I guess is the word, that it wasn't merely being felt at the street level. I retracted the question as somewhat irrelevant because COVID and otherwise declining revenue are intermingled with the impacts of the Chapter 11, so it's hard to tell which is having an impact on what and whom. Sounds like "hurt" is pretty much widely distributed, by whatever ripples are now in the pond from which rocks one can't say. When a company is going through crisis, laying off workers and freezing salaries, it always galls me when/if there are no such austerity measures being felt in the C-Suite. That's what I was pondering.

[ThenNow]

4 hours ago, ParkMan said:

I'm truly sorry that you felt so hurt by the offer. 

$50,000 for 85,000 claimants is $4.25 billion dollars.  I can't imagine that with 85,000 claimants a settlement that high is even possible.

Thank you. Sincerely.

I do not want to discount any valid claims from others like me, but I deeply question the validity of that many claims flooding in, especially knowing how they were solicited. Having read the discovery motions, the banter and blather from the so-called Coalition of Abused Scouts for Justice (which name is so presumptuous and pretentious it makes me ill) and he who shall not be named, I think the number will go down if the judge allows the vehicle to be inspected with the sniffer dogs.

I don't know what the number should be. Ultimately, it will be larger than the BSA and LC portion, since the insurers know they have to contribute to put this to bed and head for the hills, never to write another BSA policy. At this stage, it was simply a matter of what they projected when they made an initial offer, both in the substance of the offer and the manner in which they conveyed it. Neither seemed appropriate to the gravity of the moment, the stage of the case or the amount of time spent in asset review and negotiations.

Edited March 4, 2021 by ThenNow

[ThenNow]

8 hours ago, TAHAWK said:

Lawyers expressing the goal of litigation as destruction of the defendant(s) would seems to have conflict of interest issues with their clients, unless they have been uniformly instructed by the clients that destruction of the defendant(s), not monetary payment, is their goal. 

I agree with this wholeheartedly. I truly wonder what is going on in the conversations within the claims mining entities who have thousands of claimant clients under their tent. When you have that many, they must be keeping a directed focus. It appears that for some of them, definitely the group headed by he who shall not be named, that focus is "burn it all down" and we'll sort through the rubble and ash for for the good stuff. Personally, I see that direction as against the interest of most claimants. The complexity and implications of converting to a liquidation, with its varied impacts on creditors and classes, asset valuation and distribution, the much discussed reversion of LC properties upon revocation/dissolution of Charter(s), and how to handle these tort claims is beyond my knowledge and pay grade. I will do some research, though.

Edited March 4, 2021 by ThenNow

[ThenNow]

14 hours ago, mrjohns2 said:

I don't have access, but being business is right. I have heard of hedge funds looking at different cases, such as this one,  and then providing the funds to a law firm (making an investment) with the goal being a true ROR. Seems wrong to me.

That is the case here. The link below will take you to the insurers' Rule 2004 Discovery Motion. You can scroll to page 7 on the docket file, page 1 of the motion, and begin reading from there. Of course, this is what the insurers "allege" and the respondent groups deny many elements, especially the negative characterization. Several great news stories were written related to this internal battle, as well. 

https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/870566_1975.pdf

[swilliams]

55 minutes ago, ThenNow said:

Thank you. Sincerely.

I do not want to discount any valid claims from others like me, but I deeply question the validity of that many claims flooding in, especially knowing how they were solicited. Having read the discovery motions, the banter and blather from the so-called Coalition of Abused Scouts for Justice (which name is so presumptuous and pretentious it makes me ill) and he who shall not be named, I think the number will go down if the judge allows the vehicle to be inspected with the sniffer dogs.

I don't know what the number should be. Ultimately, it will be larger than the BSA and LC portion, since the insurers know they have to contribute to put this to bed and head for the hills, never to write another BSA policy. At this stage, it was simply a matter of what they projected when they made an initial offer, both in the substance of the offer and the manner in which they conveyed it. Neither seemed appropriate to the gravity of the moment, the stage of the case or the amount of time spent in asset review and negotiations.

I think many of us have similar questions about the number of claims, but are going to be very cautious about expressing them.  The last thing anyone needs is a bunch of current scouters seeming to be shrugging away or minimizing the damage that was done.

Yeah, that's what BSA's offer seems to do, but it doesn't mean those of us on the ground shouldn't be more aware.

[ThenNow]

25 minutes ago, swilliams said:

The last thing anyone needs is a bunch of current scouters seeming to be shrugging away or minimizing the damage that was done.

Which is wise. I feel iffy about questioning claims, too. Having managed a class action case on an unrelated matter, witnessing the meteoric rise in claims, the public presentations and representations by the "firms," and then reading how this all came to be, how can one not question? 

By the by, the case I refer to certified its class based on contacts made with potential members via historic records. The class was not built by gill-netting prospects through advertising or claims aggregators. 

Edited March 4, 2021 by ThenNow

[ThenNow]

I know some are unable to access WSJ articles. If it is of any help, attached is a good one briefly summarizing some of the key points raised in the insurers' discovery motion mentioned above. Apologies if I am duplicating what someone else already provided.

Coalition WSJ 1.25.2021 PDF.pdf

Edited March 4, 2021 by ThenNow

[Eagle1993]

13 minutes ago, ThenNow said:

I know some are unable to access WSJ articles. If it is of any help, attached is a good one briefly summarizing some of the key points raised in the insurers' discovery motion mentioned above. Apologies if I am duplicating what someone else already provided.

Coalition WSJ 1.25.2021 PDF.pdf 115.97 kB · 0 downloads

The WSJ brings up some good points and I question some, not all, of the lawyers involved on the claimants side.  My question is what should the judge do about this?  National BSA is paying a ton in legal fees during this bankruptcy.  Should the judge require an audit/review of all claims that could take months possibly years?  What is required to vet the claims?  All that time would simply delay the inevitable for BSA.  It is likely more important to those who submitted claims, insurance companies and future lawsuits.

Hopefully she can keep the case moving in parallel while claims are reviewed.  She needs to rule on the HA bases ... are the in or out.  Make a ruling and let the appeals start.  She needs to rule if LCs are separate or not and let the appeals start.  Does anyone know when these rulings could occur?  To me, those are the 2 big questions that directly impact the BSA. 

[CynicalScouter]

35 minutes ago, Eagle1993 said:

Should the judge require an audit/review of all claims that could take months possibly years?  What is required to vet the claims?

This is a two-step process

First, the insurance companies are proposing a sampling

1) 1400 claims in which the insurance companies would make document demands

2) 100 claimants would be interviewed/deposed. It isn't clear if that 100 would be a SUBSET of the 1400 or a completely separate group. I believe subset, but I cannot put my finger on the document.

Based on this, the insurance companies would be able to estimate how much they would need to pay into a victims fund.

Second, the settlement fund would spend the next decade sorting out the rest.

After BSA National and the Councils and the insurance companies put in their money in a "Settlement Fund" (see Article IV of the BSA reorganization plan linked) ALL abuse claims would be shifted away from BSA and to the Settlement Fund (Article V, Section M). A Settlement Trustee and Advisory Committee would be set up. The Trustee and Committee would then spend the next few years (I say decade because it could take that long) going through claim by claim.

EDIT:  Article IV, Section B lays this out.
 

Quote

B. Purposes of the Settlement Trust.

1. The purposes of the Settlement Trust shall be to assume liability for all Abuse Claims, to hold, preserve, maximize and administer the Settlement Trust Assets, and to direct the processing, liquidation and payment of all compensable Abuse Claims in accordance with the Settlement Trust Documents. The Settlement Trust shall resolve Abuse Claims in accordance with the Settlement Trust Documents in such a way that the holders of Abuse Claims are treated equitably and reasonably in light of the finite assets available to satisfy such claims.

So no, the judge won't settle the Abuse Claims. the Settlement Trustee will

Quote

C. Transfer of Claims to the Settlement Trust.

1. On the Effective Date or as otherwise provided herein, and without further action  of  any  Person,  the  Settlement  Trust  shall  assume  the  liabilities,  obligations,  and responsibilities  of  the  Protected  Parties  for  all  Abuse  Claims,  financial  or  otherwise.

 

Edited March 4, 2021 by CynicalScouter

[ThenNow]

7 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said:

The Trustee and Committee would then spend the next few years (I say decade because it could take that long) going through claim by claim.

There will almost certainly be a phase of lump sum "walkaway money" offered to claimants who just want to get something and be done with it. I don't know how that will work or how values will be calculated, but believe it will be deployed here as it has been in other cases. This will allow a reduction in the numbers, but how much and to what effect on the overall process, who knows. Not me, for sure.

[ThenNow]

27 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said:

So no, the judge won't settle the Abuse Claims. the Settlement Trustee will

To reinforce, what the insurers are hoping to do now is find pockets of invalidity, like duplicates, obvious fraud, complete lack of identifying information or 100's of claims signed by an attorney that look to have come off a copier, so they can lop off a chunk with a sickle right quick. The actual examination of claims to assess legitimacy and gauge severity, which feed into the metric of valuation, is the long process CynicalScouter mentions as belonging to the Settlement Trustee. Maybe that helps.

[ParkMan]

3 hours ago, ThenNow said:

Initially, I thought about it related to the squeeze being put on you guys via reductions in revenue and all. I was hoping, I guess is the word, that it wasn't merely being felt at the street level. I retracted the question as somewhat irrelevant because COVID and otherwise declining revenue are intermingled with the impacts of the Chapter 11, so it's hard to tell which is having an impact on what and whom. Sounds like "hurt" is pretty much widely distributed, by whatever ripples are now in the pond from which rocks one can't say. When a company is going through crisis, laying off workers and freezing salaries, it always galls me when/if there are no such austerity measures being felt in the C-Suite. That's what I was pondering.

Gotcha - thanks.  

Myself, I don't even think about national that much anymore.  I'm a district level volunteer and so I live in the world of unit health.  What national does certainly impacts us, but they more or less do what I need them to do and don't get in the way too much. 

As part of my volunteer work, I've seen enough at the council level to recognize that we really do operate as a council independently of national.  The layoffs we've had locally in the professional ranks have more to do with Covid and membership loss than anything.  No one at national is telling us who to lay off or how big the staff should be.  The board looks at our budget and cash flow and then works with the SE to figure out the staff we can support.

What I'm getting at is whether the BSA execs have meager salaries or giant salaries and drive Ferraris, it really doesn't impact things at the council level.  The only thing it really impacts is how big the dues are that we all pay to national are each year.  It's without question that we all want to pay less in dues, but it's such an abstract number that I stopped sweating how it might be impacted by professional salaries.  My guess is that dues right now are more a factor of insurance premiums than anything.  What's going to ultimately kill dues at the national level is what happens with insurance.  

 

[fred8033]

9 hours ago, yknot said:

Frankly, that's what I hope for most. That some of these larger properties, either HA bases or larger council properties, somehow get converted into federal, state or county parks. One thing no one is talking about regarding a total or partial liquidation is that having that many large acreage properties come on market at around the same time would only lead to fire sale prices. There are only so many entities in the U.S. that would have the financial means or interest to purchase large tracts, many of which are in depressed, inaccessible or less than marketable places. It could lead to fire sales, which also does not benefit claimants. One way I could see the federal government assisting would be to put together a package deal of purchasing a collection of plum BSA properties to add to the national parks system, or for states to do so more locally on a case by case basis. I'd love to hear from some property folks about whether that is a viable possibility. I'm kind of more concerned about making sure some of these really historic properties remain wild and accessible and don't wind up being condo enclaves and golf courses. 

For Philmont, this could easily fit into the Antiquities Act as a Philmont trek is a recreation of many historic ways of living.  While I love BSA having this property for high adventures, making it available to the nation as an adventure option is a great idea.

Edited March 4, 2021 by fred8033

[ThenNow]

1 minute ago, fred8033 said:

While I love BSA has this property for high adventures, making it available to the nation's youth and young adults as an adventure option is very useful.

I couldn't afford Philmont when I was in Scouting. It would be a joy to experience it before I croak.