Chapter 11 announced

[CynicalScouter]

8 minutes ago, Eagle1993 said:

Interested in seeing assets of various councils (at least based upon financial disclosures).  You can see them here:

Three MAJOR caveats here:

1) What gets reported on the IRS 990s is often assets MINUS depreciation.

2) There's shell games getting played. So yes, XYZ Council doesn't list Camp on their IRS 990s. That's because they shifted it to some Trust and the Council leases it for $1 a year (looking at you Middle Tennessee Council).

3) Council "Foundations". LCs can and will absolutely bury the $$$ in those and pretend they don't control it when, for all intents and purposes, they do.

Not to pick on Circle Ten, but they are an example.

Circle Ten Boy Scouts Foundation EIN # 75-6026210 has over $50 million in 990 reported assets.

Meanwhile the Council EIN #75-0800615 itself has "only" $35 million in 990 reported assets.

 

[ParkMan]

1 hour ago, ThenNow said:

In this case, we see not only the runaway train of legal fees, enhancing the wealth of the attorneys, but the residual damage and revisited trauma for survivors who came out of hiding to file claims. Like me, they were promised "equitable compensation." Vague as that is, it was a tremendous banner of hope, and will soon end up with precious little for their genuine grief. False hope, I'm afraid. I'm only in this position, in this case and on this forum because I was invited by misters Mosby and Turley.

I think you got sold a false bill of goods.

1) I don't doubt that a some lawyers & activists are in this for the cause.  However, like anyone who is fighting for a cause the people who get enlisted to the cause often are second to the cause itself.

2) Law is a business like any other.  Like any business I'm sure that the lawyers believe in their product (getting you money for your suffering).  But it's still a business.

3) Messrs Mosby & Turley I'm sure were doing their job too.  I am sure they believed in getting you equitable compensation for your suffering.  When this started, I have to imagine that they looked at trends in SOL legislation and thought that we will all have lawsuit after lawsuit for the next 30 years.  They knew the BSA made mistakes in it's past and that the activists and lawyers would never stop.  To me it seemed a prudent goal to look for a way to settle this once and for all and to pay reparations for what had happened in the past.  I would have to imagine that Messrs Mosby & Turley never imagined this number of claims.

You are caught in the middle.  

[ThenNow]

7 minutes ago, ParkMan said:

You are caught in the middle.  

Quite to contrary, I/we are lubing grinding gears in which we are stuck like so much meat being ground up to be spit out the exit tube. In this particular category, "I/we" are the SOL guys who got no SoL relief and, therefore, can't get no satisfaction. 'Cause you see I'm a losing streak. Hey, hey, hey. That's what I say...  

[ThenNow]

1 hour ago, ParkMan said:

I think you got sold a false bill of goods.

Yes, amen, praise the Lord and pass the biscuits. (Again, to be clear, the only reason I'm here is I responded to the public invitations and inducement from the BSA. The impetus wasn't self generated and didn't come from an attorney ad, therapist, family member, CHILD USA, person of influence or otherwise. I am a freewill agent and used that agency to take up hope and respond by filing a claim. 100% my bad. It's on me. I should've known better.)

Edited March 8, 2021 by ThenNow

[DavidLeeLambert]

1 hour ago, Eagle1993 said:

Interested in seeing assets of various councils (at least based upon financial disclosures).  You can see them here:

https://www.causeiq.com/directory/scouting-organizations-list/

Note that single councils could have multiple lines of entry.

 

Also watch out: that list included GSUSA and a lot of Girl Scout councils.

[DavidLeeLambert]

18 hours ago, Eagle1993 said:

Just saw a document for the TCC fees.  December 1 through Dec 30 ... 1 month.  Total fees, paid out of BSA's funds, $850K.  Nearly $1M a month for the TCC lawyers.  

[...]

 

I saw that too. It's worth mentioning that Stang's firm has promised to contribute 10% of their revenue from this case to the trust fund for victims.  Still, that's roughly $10.00 per abuse claimant (less $1.00 promised contribution), or $1.00 per registered adult volunteer at the end of 2019, or $0.40 per registered youth at the end of 2019.  Troops that collect monthly dues should tack on a quarter, a dime and a nickel to support him, and his firm is just one of many that are billing BSA.

[ParkMan]

30 minutes ago, ThenNow said:

Yes, amen, praise the Lord and pass the biscuits. (Again, to be clear, the only reason I'm here is I responded to the public invitations and inducement from the BSA. The impetus wasn't self generated and didn't come from an attorney ad, therapist, family member, CHILD USA, person of influence or otherwise. I am a freewill agent and used that agency to take up hope and respond  by filing a claim. My bad.)

And you'll get money here.  They said they had some money to pay claimants with and invited all those who wanted a part to come forward.  I don't see how any of this is false hope from the BSA. 

[ThenNow]

29 minutes ago, ParkMan said:

And you'll get money here.  They said they had some money to pay claimants with and invited all those who wanted a part to come forward.  I don't see how any of this is false hope from the BSA. 

I can "get money" standing on the corner with a sign. As with other issues, you and I are not going to see eye to eye on this one. Eye to elbow, maybe [he said completely in jest]. Again, "equitably compensate all victims of past abuse in Scouting." Come and get it. $6100 ain't equitable. Add to it, 59,837 claims are on the block marked "SOL." We block heads aren't going to vote for this Plan, a manicured modification of it or for getting vertically reduced by 13". End game? Liquidation. End result? Zippo. 

Edited March 8, 2021 by ThenNow

[ThenNow]

26 minutes ago, DavidLeeLambert said:

Stang's firm has promised to contribute 10% of their revenue from this case to the trust fund for victims.

Gross or net? If the latter, who gets to set the definitions and accounting method?

[ParkMan]

41 minutes ago, ThenNow said:

I can "get money" standing on the corner with a sign. As with other issues, you and I are not going to see eye to eye on this one. Eye to elbow, maybe [he said completely in jest]. Again, "equitably compensate all victims of past abuse in Scouting." Come and get it. $6100 ain't equitable. Add to it, 59,837 claims are on the block marked "SOL." We block heads aren't going to vote for this Plan, a manicured modification of it or for getting vertically reduced by 13". End game? Liquidation. End result? Zippo. 

We're not as far apart as you probably think.  I worry both about the victims of abuse and also the future of the program.  So I'm going to look for a solution that allows both to occur. 

You and I have been down the money path before - I appreciate that you don't like the amount.  Your definition of equitable is your definition.  I'm happy for the BSA to find you more money, but we just have to keep the program alive.  If that means we sell Summit & Northern Tier, that's fine by me.  Similarly if we combine smaller councils together and sell some camps along the way - that's fine too.  

I just want to see each side willing to come to the table.  We don't need this to be legal equivalent of mutually assured destruction.

Edited March 8, 2021 by ParkMan
typos

[Eagle1993]

Is this another $11M legal fee for the BSA?

https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/877519_2330.pdf

[ThenNow]

27 minutes ago, Eagle1993 said:

Is this another $11M legal fee for the BSA?

If it's being presented to the court for approval, I believe it must be. I'm not sure if anyone here has a running list, but there are a slew of consultants on top of the legal teams who were hired on various fronts including insurance counsel, property and asset valuation, forensic accounting...  

Edited March 8, 2021 by ThenNow

[ThenNow]

30 minutes ago, ParkMan said:

We're not as far apart as you probably think.  I worry both about the victims of abuse and also the future of the program.  So I'm going to look for a solution that allows both to occur. 

You and I have been down the money path before - I appreciate that you don't like the amount.  Your definition of equitable is your definition.  I'm happy for the BSA to find you more money, but we just have to keep the program alive.  If that means we sell Summit & Northern Tier, that's fine by me.  Similarly if we combine smaller councils together and see some camps along the way - that's fine too.  

I just want to see each side willing to come to the table.  We don't need this to be legal equivalent of mutually assured destruction.

You are, after all, "Optimist."  

Equitable means "just, fair and reasonable." As others have articulated far better than this necessarily biased participant, what was put forward seems to fall a mighty bit short of that bar. I defer to them. Yes, it is subjective, but I am not imposing my "definition." Fair, just and reasonable is about context, which includes damage on one side and assets, ability and willingness on the other. How that shakes out, I can't say. On this topic, I got no table and got no way no how to approach the feast set before others. I'm sitting at my desk in the corner watching the world go by, tilting at windmills in my mind. Maybe better, "letting the days go by...after the money's gone. Same as it ever was..."

I promise to stop the dark imagery from literary and pop music references now. Well, I promise to try.

Edited March 8, 2021 by ThenNow

[CynicalScouter]

1 hour ago, ThenNow said:

$6100 ain't equitable.

This is the horrible part about this. This is pain. This is suffering. These are people who have been abused.

And this is also math.

If $6100 isn't the right answer, what is?

There's a reason bankruptcy courts usually aren't in this mess: this is for civil juries to deal with 1 person/case or claims adjusters/special masters to wade deep into thousands of claims for decades of injuries of varying degrees.

Is $1,000,000 "equitable"? That's probably too high, now we are talking BILLIONS. BSA has, maybe, $1-1.5 billion and that's with complete liquidation.

So, $100,000?

$10,000?

This sucks. This is people's lives. But this is also math.

The judge so far has not ruled on the numerator: BSA assets available for disbursement MINUS amount BSA needs to keep to survive which BSA pegs as $75 million.

The judge so far has not ruled on the denominator: total number of eligible claimants/estimated number of eligible claimants.

Answering EITHER is going to be necessary for "equitable".

1) If the judge rules only 10,000 claims are eligible, then a settlement or bankruptcy trustee can work backwards to figure out the assets BSA has to come up with.

2) If the judge rules BSA has $750 million in assets eligible for disbursement - $75 million for BSA to survive, then a settlement or bankruptcy trustee can work backwards to figure out how much each claimant gets.

But until we know one or the other number, "equitable" is just guess work.

Edited March 8, 2021 by CynicalScouter

[InquisitiveScouter]

27 minutes ago, ThenNow said:

You are, after all, "Optimist."  

Lol..

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=optomist