Chapter 11 announced

[InquisitiveScouter]

6 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said:

disbanding Scouting

Although, they will only be disbanding the corporation known as the Boy Scouts of America.  Scouting is a movement that must be intellectually separated from the BSA.  Scouting will go on, and I intend to be one who keeps it going, with or without the BSA.  Hence my moniker...

[TAHAWK]

26 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said:

I know of at least one lawyer that has said the goals are a) money for the victims and b) disbanding Scouting.

Working pro se is that lawyer?   Happy to hear that one of them is not doing it to get rich. 

[CynicalScouter]

1 minute ago, TAHAWK said:

Working pro se is that lawyer?   Happy to hear that one of them is not doing it to get rich. 

Works on contingency. No money for victims, no money for him.

[TAHAWK]

20 minutes ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

Although, they will only be disbanding the corporation known as the Boy Scouts of America.  Scouting is a movement that must be intellectually separated from the BSA.  Scouting will go on, and I intend to be one who keeps it going, with or without the BSA.  Hence my moniker...

Scouting was in the U.S., coast-to-coast (and Canada),  in 1908.   Ninety-nine troops greeted BSA when it arrived in Cleveland in 1912.

[TAHAWK]

Just now, CynicalScouter said:

Works on contingency. No money for victims, no money for him.

 Like gamblers - but at a rigged table.

[CynicalScouter]

Just now, TAHAWK said:

 Like gamblers - but at a rigged table.

No one is denying that there were abuse victims.

National in its filings admitted it failed these scouts.

That is not "rigged". National screwed up, therefore National via its assets will pay.

What is being debated now is a) how much to settle claims and b) to what extent are Councils and COs on the hook.

[ParkMan]

1 hour ago, CynicalScouter said:

BSA isn't looking to get the COs in. The lawyers for the claimants/abuse victims want them in because (I suspect) they are realizing that the combined assets of National + Councils = not much when divided up among tens of thousands of claimants. So, you go for where the next set of assets/deep(er) pockets are. The COs.

Right - this is the claimants pursuing this.  Injustices against people aside, my sense is that this started because lawyers and early claimants saw the BSA as a group with deep pockets that was easy to sue and pursue damages against.  However, now that everyone has realized that this idea is running out of steam, the lawyers want to expand the pool of claimants and add COs to their lawsuits.  

In retrospect, this doesn't seem an awful idea.  It's a toss-up if Scouting units are more aligned to the council/BSA or the CO.  If a Scout was abused 40 years ago who was more at fault - the BSA or the CO?

[skeptic]

We might add the possibility that society as a whole was equally responsible in that the responses to these things were completely different in that earlier period.  So, once again, taking the sin/bad behavior out of its own period to be measured against a different view and response mechanism is blatantly unfair to most involved.  And to remove the actual perpetrator from the picture, basically because they are dead or too senile to be held accountable to modern "standards (?)" seems even more unreasonable.  As we have noted before, ours is almost the only country in which this would even be happening.  

I truly do not understand why these bottom feeders are even allowed inside a courtroom.  It would help of course if the yellow press would change their stripe and tell the complete story, rather than just the most heinous and headline grabber.  

You would think that other groups, especially youth serving, would be doing all they could to aid the BSA, as it will move to them too soon enough, as the GS already have found; along with at least one youth study group in university research.

[ParkMan]

10 minutes ago, skeptic said:

We might add the possibility that society as a whole was equally responsible in that the responses to these things were completely different in that earlier period.  So, once again, taking the sin/bad behavior out of its own period to be measured against a different view and response mechanism is blatantly unfair to most involved.  And to remove the actual perpetrator from the picture, basically because they are dead or too senile to be held accountable to modern "standards (?)" seems even more unreasonable.  As we have noted before, ours is almost the only country in which this would even be happening.  

I truly do not understand why these bottom feeders are even allowed inside a courtroom.  It would help of course if the yellow press would change their stripe and tell the complete story, rather than just the most heinous and headline grabber.  

You would think that other groups, especially youth serving, would be doing all they could to aid the BSA, as it will move to them too soon enough, as the GS already have found; along with at least one youth study group in university research.

I do believe that there is a fair public policy question here.  Should the country have ever removed the statute of limitations and should organizations like the BSA, churches, and other COs be responsible for abuse claims from that long ago?  These organizations all have permanence due to the nature of the kinds of organizations that they are.  They have all made decisions years ago that if made today would be considered reprehensible and subject to legal action.  Should quasi-permanent institutions like these be held liable for the these terrible decisions by people who are long since gone and no longer affiliated with the organization?  The actions of all these organizations today are radically different than those of 40 years ago.  Should groups be actively be trying to disband them because of those actions so long ago?

The heinous nature of these crimes makes it all but impossible to really have this discussion though.  Anyone who would argue this point would most likely be labeled as being sympathetic to abuse.  Even the BSA has all but refused to fight this trend of lawsuits.  The BSA made what I fear will be a near-fatal decision to not push back on these lawsuits and frame them correctly.  The kids in Scouting today would be much better off if the BSA had hired some very expensive PR and lobbying firms several years ago and fought this trend.

[elitts]

49 minutes ago, ParkMan said:

  If a Scout was abused 40 years ago who was more at fault - the BSA or the CO?

And that presupposes the idea that someone other than the abuser should be held to be at fault at all.  I'm still not a fan of that whole idea in the first place except in the relatively few cases I've seen where something clearly got ignored or covered up by the BSA. 

 

As much as it would be nice to get a settlement done and over with, there is a growing part of me that would like to see the BSA say "If you can't accept a settlement that leaves us with enough resources to continue to operate, it makes more sense for us to use every dollar we would have had to fund a settlement to actually litigate these cases.  If we lose, then five to ten years from now when all the extensions and appeals are exhausted, you can check the cushions for any change that happens to be left."

 

[walk in the woods]

1 hour ago, ParkMan said:

The BSA made what I fear will be a near-fatal decision to not push back on these lawsuits and frame them correctly.  The kids in Scouting today would be much better off if the BSA had hired some very expensive PR and lobbying firms several years ago and fought this trend.

They did, https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/boy-scouts-lobby-in-states-to-stem-the-flow-of-child-abuse-lawsuits/2018/05/08/0eee0a44-47d8-11e8-827e-190efaf1f1ee_story.html

[ParkMan]

1 hour ago, walk in the woods said:

They did, https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/boy-scouts-lobby-in-states-to-stem-the-flow-of-child-abuse-lawsuits/2018/05/08/0eee0a44-47d8-11e8-827e-190efaf1f1ee_story.html

Thank you very much for making me aware of that.  I didn't know that.

[HICO_Eagle]

To some extent, I think a lot of this has been part of a long game to destroy the pillars of Western society and that while the aim of individual lawyers may have been money (for them or for the victims), the ultimate and primary aim of a growing segment of activists for decades has been to tear down "the Church", the BSA, the military, the police, etc. Tearing down the organizations does nothing positive for the current and future generations who could have benefited from the programs and teaching. All it does is leave a vacuum that various nefarious powers are just drooling to fill (and already has been filling in the mainstream media, public education, academia, etc.).

[DavidLeeLambert]

21 hours ago, CynicalScouter said:

Works on contingency. No money for victims, no money for him.

Speaking of greedy lawyers:

"Century served deposition notices for the depositions of Messrs. Van Arsdale and Kosnoff after the TCC turned over Mr. Kosnoff’s email to the Office of the United States Trustee in which he refers to the abuse claimants who serve as members of the Committee as “nitwits” and threatens BSA and Committee." [D.I.1266]

"The deceptive nature of these ads also mask a more fundamental and troubling reality. Mr. Kosnoff holds himself out as no longer practicing law and Mr. Arsdale is an advertising company owner who only recently passed the bar. They are in the business of creating and marketing “inventories” of claims. In the seedy underbelly of mass torts, individuals front for “motherfunders” and a host of other non-lawyers who provide funding in exchange for a piece of each claim." [same document, earlier page]

And also,

"In this email, Timothy Kosnoff (who, together with Andrew Van Arsdale, is the spokesman for the Coalition), states that we “need to control our power. Not just to the committee but to everyone - mediators, BSA, councils etc.” [D.I. 1228 at 20.] He also states that some of the entities for whom he claims to speak “aren’t handing over any of their data to anyone unless and until this gets sorted out. [Mike] Andolina and the 3 Amigos [the mediators appointed by this court] need to get that message. They are wasting their time talking to the TCC.”" [D.I.1261]

 

[CynicalScouter]

For those not clear, TCC = Official Committee of Tort Claimants which is the group of claimants (well, their attorneys really) who are the court-designated negotiation team for all claimants in this process.

Basically as I read this motion, Kosnoff is trying to leverage his purported list of claimants to either overtake or cut out the Official Committee of Tort Claimants named by the court.

Edited October 1, 2020 by CynicalScouter