Chapter 11 announced - Part 3 - BSA's Toggle Plan

[jr56]

Possibly.  Impossible to tell at this point.

[jr56]

Interesting point you made on Chapter 7.  I had been told that a non-profit could not be sued into oblivion, but you are right, if the parties will not accept any kind of settlement other than a Chapter 7, the lawyer fees will eventually do in the BSA

[CynicalScouter]

4 minutes ago, jr56 said:

Really sad that the people who actually committed these crimes go free,

Most are dead.

And the point of these lawsuits and claims is NOT the abuse, but that BSA allowed the abuse to happen, failed to supervise/oversee the adult leaders, etc.

The BSA, LCs, and COs are being sued for failing to care for the scouts in question here.

[jr56]

So am I not understanding this?  I have been told by the BSA,  if you can believe that, that the are very proactive in efforts to prevent child abuse, more do than other groups.  Is this not true?  What further things should be done?

[CynicalScouter]

38 minutes ago, jr56 said:

So am I not understanding this?  I have been told by the BSA,  if you can believe that, that the are very proactive in efforts to prevent child abuse, more do than other groups.  Is this not true?  What further things should be done?

Since BSA implemented YPT, over 11,000 additional abuse cases have occurred.

Quote

2. [BSA's] bankruptcy cases were caused by decades of childhood sexual abuse that has resulted in 84,000 claims. The Boy Scout’s current child protection protocols have been in place since the mid-1990s and the Boy Scouts do not propose revising or updating its child protection protocols even though more than 11,000 of the 84,000 childhood sexual abuse claims arose after the mid-1990s.

 

[Eagle94-A1]

BSA has  updated YP policies as recently as 2018/2019.

[yknot]

Part of the issue with YP is also that BSA has not been honest. In a letter to Congress it said it supported look back legislation but at the same time spent millions quietly lobbying to fight such legislation. In the same letter to Congress, it also claimed it had never allowed a known perpetrator to return to scouting but that claim later had to be recanted when it was found to be untrue. BSA has known it has had issues with predators almost since its inception and yet for many years it pretended such problems didn't exist and only acknowledged the ineligible volunteer files as a result of a lawsuit. Over the years BSA has claimed a lot of things about YP but that doesn't always reflect the reality. 

[Owls_are_cool]

34 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said:

Since BSA implemented YPT, over 11,000 additional abuse cases have occurred.

Has those responsible for these over 11,000 instances of abuse been convicted in criminal court? How about those that swept the abuse under the rug? Sounds like my son is expected to sell popcorn for a victim's fund instead of his scouting program. Not as bad a scouts being abused in the past, but still wrong.

[CynicalScouter]

4 minutes ago, Owls_are_cool said:

Has those responsible for these over 11,000 instances of abuse been convicted in criminal court?

That's not the threshold for a civil suit or a civil claim. Criminal = beyond a reasonable doubt. Civil = preponderance of the evidence.

Keep in mind: OJ Simpson, for example, was found not guilty in criminal court, but found liable for the death of Nicole Brown Simpson in civil court.

Saying that you cannot get a civil judgement unless you met the criminal standard is ludicrous.

Edited April 22, 2021 by CynicalScouter

[CynicalScouter]

On 4/21/2021 at 10:49 AM, Owls_are_cool said:

Will this endowment fund be liquidated to fund the victim compensation fund?

At this point, as I've noted elsewhere, it will depend. Montana does not have a look-back window for abuse claims (for now), so it may be able to settle the 122 claims it has against it for whatever cash it has on hand. Or it may have to sell some camps, etc. It is going to vary from council to council. Some councils may not even participate in this at all and hope their state legislature never reopens these civil cases in the future.

[Eagle1993]

So ... um, here is an official response to BSA's & Harford's offer.  If you don't want to read it ... the Cliff Notes ... "BSA can pound sand."

https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/887735_2672.pdf

Quote

The Debtors’ Deal with Hartford Is Unconscionable

Quote

The Debtors (BSA) Are Trying to Arm the Insurers with Tools to Avoid Paying Survivors Post-Confirmation

Quote

Enough. The time has come for a different approach. The Coalition, the FCR, and the TCC are discussing a plan that they would propose to save the Boy Scouts, provide meaningful compensation to survivors, and provide an opportunity for Local Councils and Chartered Organizations to make contributions and become Protected Parties. Help is on the way, but for a competing plan—which would be proposed and supported by the survivor community—to be filed, exclusivity must be terminated. This needs to happen immediately.

Quote

Even if exclusivity is not terminated now, the Global Resolution Plan is still dead. The Debtors are determined to go forward with their settlement with Hartford. The Coalition and the FCR will fight any plan that includes the Hartford settlement and the Insurance Provisions.

 

[elitts]

17 hours ago, ThenNow said:

I’m not sure where you heard that. Certainly not from me. Some fractional measure of compensation is pretty much all I have left to hope for out of the disaster this created for my family and me.

Most statements you see from victims of almost anything talk about how "it's not about the money".  You might be different because you are/were a lawyer and you understand money is really the only option left for you.

4 hours ago, CynicalScouter said:

So, sexual abuse is a lawyers' "get rich quick scheme"?

Any large class action lawsuit is a lawyer's "get rich not-quite-quick scheme".

 

3 hours ago, CynicalScouter said:

That would absolutely look like hiding assets in order to avoid turning them over the creditors.

So?  As long as it's not legally considered a no-no by the bankruptcy laws, the optics don't matter much since all the options are bad anyway.  

1 hour ago, CynicalScouter said:

I see. So, lawyers who take on sexual abuse cases are evil vultures?

And how, exactly, do you think these abuse victims are suppose to file a lawsuit? Go pro se?

And LCs are not "state sanctioned". They are registered and incorporated as not for profits by each state, but so what? That does not mean the State of Vermont's governor can order LCs not to turn over their assets to national should national refuse to recharter the LC.

No, "lawyers who behave like Kosnoff" are vultures, though I would probably not say "evil".  If you portray yourself as a crusader for justice and the common good, while taking 40% of the payout finally achieved, you are something else I can't quite define other than to say it's icky and I wouldn't shake hands with it.

1 hour ago, CynicalScouter said:

No. BSA's very, very clear. The LC must abide by National's requirement that the LC write into their Articles of Incorporation that If an LC fails to recharter, ALL assets of the LC revert to National.

Any LC that refuses to include that clause in their Articles of Incorporation will simply not be chartered by BSA.

This is clear as day in the Boy Scouts of America Charter and Bylaws

 

This is a non-issue.  If the LCs are separate organizations all they need to do is amend their bylaws/incorporation documents to remove those clauses and the problem is solved.  Obviously that would mean that they wouldn't get rechartered, but if National is in Chapter 7, that's not really an issue is it?

[CynicalScouter]

6 minutes ago, Eagle1993 said:

The Debtors’ Deal with Hartford Is Unconscionable

As I said, the Hartford thing was a joke. $650,000,000? Keep adding zeros to the end of that ($6.5 billion? $65 billion?) and there's a conversation somewhere in there.

[elitts]

45 minutes ago, yknot said:

Part of the issue with YP is also that BSA has not been honest. In a letter to Congress it said it supported look back legislation but at the same time spent millions quietly lobbying to fight such legislation. In the same letter to Congress, it also claimed it had never allowed a known perpetrator to return to scouting but that claim later had to be recanted when it was found to be untrue. BSA has known it has had issues with predators almost since its inception and yet for many years it pretended such problems didn't exist and only acknowledged the ineligible volunteer files as a result of a lawsuit. Over the years BSA has claimed a lot of things about YP but that doesn't always reflect the reality. 

Those aren't issues with the Youth Protection policies, those are simply your issues with the BSA.

There are two main issues with Youth Protection:

1. Most adults are inclined to trust the other adults around them and can't really imagine abuse happening around them.
2.  It is exceedingly difficult to get strict compliance from volunteers, particularly when the behaviors you are trying to control are happening in a dispersed setting.

[DuctTape]

5 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said:

As I said, the Hartford thing was a joke. $650,000,000? Keep adding zeros to the end of that ($6.5 billion? $65 billion?) and there's a conversation somewhere in there.

Do you or anyone else know the $ amount (if any) listed on the BSA's insurance policy? 

Please forgive my ignorance as my only experience with insurance policies is car, house, life, and medical and all of them have maximum $ amounts as part of the policy.