Chapter 11 announced - Part 14 - Plan Effective

[Eagle1993]

17 hours ago, MYCVAStory said:

Again, no way to predict but if you were looking for a deeply doubtful SCOTUS that was looking for a reason to deny third-party releases then you didn't get it today. 

Listened to the argument.  My thought (again who knows):

• Would uphold Purdue plan: Thomas, Kavanaugh
• Would reject Purdue plan: Gorsuch, Barrett, Jackson
• On the fence (or just tougher to read): Roberts, Alito, Sotomayor, Kagan

Boy Scouts Plan was brought up and the DOJ indicated it may still be ok as appeals could be considered moot.

I do think there is a lot of concern of what will happen if the plan is rejected and the DOJ didn't do a good job explaining that.  So, I could see a path where they accept the plan and perhaps set a high bar on non-consensual releases.  If I had to be, I would bet there.

[MYCVAStory]

13 hours ago, Ojoman said:

 

I found the materials on line that listed the individual cases and included the documents and I did read a fair number to get an idea of how serious the suit was and yes, it was serious but none of the cases I saw included any professionals as abusers (I certainly expect there were some, just not the ones I read) but mainly volunteer adults and in some cases adults that were not even registered but affiliated through the chartered partner or as a relative of a youth member. I would change my mind if you can direct me to the documentation that shows that BSA employees were the abusers in significant numbers.

An organization is responsible for its volunteers and operations.  Period.  The law makes this clear.  Go watch the Netflix Documentary and pay close attention to its former legal counsel who says essentially "The problem wasn't the BSA, it was a few bad apples in it."  The lack of logic would be funny if it wasn't so sad.  Oh, and those few bad apples, one was a EMPLOYED by the BSA and raped me.

The bottom line is that I don't deny that victims should have had their day in court. Frankly, most of them could probably have gotten a much better settlement if they had sued their local councils individually. I believe there was one case settled for 5 million dollars, perhaps adjusted later to a lower amount but the point is, you are correct that individual judgements were quite substantial. 

"My day in court?"  Hardly.  The bankruptcy is PREVENTING my day in court.  It PREVENTS discovery into knowing the names of colleagues of yours in the 1970's who may have known about or enabled my abuser.  The bankruptcy denies the sort of restorative justice that allows me to confront them.  And right now, it also prevents me from proceeding with my suit against my abuser because any award I receive may diminish my award from the Trust.  So, the bankruptcy is shielding him too.  My day in court?  No, but I'm a lucky one compared to those of my brothers who the SOLs prevent any sort of suit from proceeding.  For them their Council would be shielded and there is NO "day in court."

The problem for me is I know literally dozens of individuals whose lives were vastly improved because of Scouting and the BSA because of this suit will now fail to reach 10's and even 100's of thousands of youth that could benefit from the values/teachings and trainings along with the positive mentors in Scouting. I ran an inner city program for over 6 years that served hundreds of Scouts and Cubs and that program no longer exists. The council no longer has the resources to even properly support its traditional unit programs let alone staff and support the Scoutreach program. There was no good outcome in this for anyone but the lawyers and law firms that brought the suit. 

Wow, "dozens" who were positively impacted.  Tell that to the 82,000.  That said, the vast majority of Survivors I've spoken to, and even the TCC for the ost part in its comments, have said "We don't care about the future of Scouting AS LONG AS KIDS ARE SAFE."  Now, you claim that kids won't be positively impacted because of the bankruptcy?  That's complete bull$hit.  Survivors voted down the first plan and accepted a second one because for one reason the Youth Protection measures were significantly strengthened.  THAT will improve lives.  Units went out of business?  That is NOT the fault of the bankruptcy, it's the fault of mismanagement by the Council, District, National and ultimately the local market for which Scouting was not attractive.  How dare you blame current issues with the abuse that happened to many of us decades ago.  As well, read the words of the new BSA CEO who claims membership will double.  Seems to me that bankruptcy REORGANIZATION will help and not hurt.  As far as no good outcome, it isn't over yet and Survivors will judge that when we see our actual awards and come to grips with what that means.  So don't tell me what my outcome will be.  That's for me to decide.  Have law firms made money off of this?  Sure, and I will pay my attorney a third of what I see, gladly.  You get what you pay for and when billions are at stake you pay a lot.

I'm sorry that you were a part of this dark chapter. I hope you find healing. God Bless

While I appreciate the sentiment, I again urge you to do a VERY deep dive into this forum and others.  The legal analysis and discussion of the FACTS of this bankruptcy are a real education.  THAT is the best way to help Survivors.  First and foremost, understand how we got here, what we've been through, and respect that some of us want to see the Scouts continue, some want them to go away, and some don't care, but we ALL want kids to be safe and for Society to learn from what happened to us so it doesn't happen again.

Mods....I recognize that my tone is a bit aggressive but it's done respectfully to drive home a point or two and lend emotion to where it belongs.

[MYCVAStory]

SO....Judge Silverstein has ruled on the Coalition's Substantial Contribution Payment and has decided they get....NOTHING.  That's right, they requested the BSA pay what, $20 million for the lawyers and professionals to represent it when it tried to strong-arm a settlement that the Survivors voted down!?  The opinion is below and it's a doozy.  Basically, "you were representing a constituency that the TCC already represented.", "You took credit for everything and that was objected to.", "You told the Court when you wanted to become a mediation party that the State Court Counsels who made up the Coalition would be paying its professional fees.", "Oh, and those personal injury attorneys are making 25-40% of their clients' awards so they can pay the bills of their professionals."  So karma rules.  Big Time.  I'm no attorney but the ruling really reads like a "What not to do" for the next entity that tries to pull the same maneuver. 

11652 12-05-23 Opinion.pdf

[RememberSchiff]

7 hours ago, MYCVAStory said:

...As well, read the words of the new BSA CEO who claims membership will double.  Seems to me that bankruptcy REORGANIZATION will help and not hurt. 

Our previous CEO Roger Mosby claimed membership would double. I am unable to verify that the new BSA CEO, Roger Krone also stated this. Mr. Krone did say that he planned to "reverse the trend of declining membership". What that plan will be remains to be seen.

Reorganization? At the National level, that remains to be seen too. Will Mr. Krone shake-up the National Executive Council? There has been a downsizing of the Executive Board from 72 or 73 members to 48 (still too large) but not many new young faces. Some staff layoffs. Bylaws and org chart are more convoluted than ever (recall Judge Silverstein just shook her head). We have had a new YP Executive Director for 7+ months but whether he has a staff or established a YP Committee ...well remains to be seen.

Edited December 6, 2023 by RememberSchiff

[MYCVAStory]

2 hours ago, RememberSchiff said:

Reorganization? At the National level, that remains to be seen too

Agree 100%.  My comment was in response to someone stating that the reorg will hurt kids' opportunities.  At the end of the day that's 100% in the hands of the entity that voluntarily entered bankruptcy and those who joined in because it was in their interest to do so, the National and Local organizations.  Time will tell!

[skeptic]

In our area we are now trying to rally a new direction, but we are being shut down by a very unprofessional and in most of our views unqualified SE.  Trouble is that we are having issues with finding anyone to whom we can go above council.  We are trying to get a real gathering of COR's who CAN fire the man, but finding the contacts is difficult when the office claims they cannot share that info.  Our current elect president seems to either not understand very well, or he is just a puppet, or it continues to seem.  Meanwhile, our local concerned Scouters are trying to form our own program cooperative, so to speak which will allow the small units to be included in some of the program of the larger and more successful ones.  On top of it all, we were told they have closed our camp and are looking to find a new option which is aimed at selling by the SE who seems to have gotten himself veto power of some type.  An almost hundred year old camp that has been poorly administgrated for decades, but recently has shown huge success, even to out of area troops.  But with no camp the program becomes even more difficult to run well.    

If anyone on these forums might have contact info that might help us in regard to our SE issues, I would appreciate a note.  Thanks.

[fred8033]

9 hours ago, MYCVAStory said:

I found the materials on line that listed the individual cases and included the documents and I did read a fair number to get an idea of how serious the suit was and yes, it was serious but none of the cases I saw included any professionals as abusers (I certainly expect there were some, just not the ones I read) but mainly volunteer adults and in some cases adults that were not even registered but affiliated through the chartered partner or as a relative of a youth member. I would change my mind if you can direct me to the documentation that shows that BSA employees were the abusers in significant numbers.

An organization is responsible for its volunteers and operations.  Period.  The law makes this clear.  Go watch the Netflix Documentary and pay close attention to its former legal counsel who says essentially "The problem wasn't the BSA, it was a few bad apples in it."  The lack of logic would be funny if it wasn't so sad.  Oh, and those few bad apples, one was a EMPLOYED by the BSA and raped me.

The bottom line is that I don't deny that victims should have had their day in court. Frankly, most of them could probably have gotten a much better settlement if they had sued their local councils individually. I believe there was one case settled for 5 million dollars, perhaps adjusted later to a lower amount but the point is, you are correct that individual judgements were quite substantial. 

"My day in court?"  Hardly.  The bankruptcy is PREVENTING my day in court.  It PREVENTS discovery into knowing the names of colleagues of yours in the 1970's who may have known about or enabled my abuser.  The bankruptcy denies the sort of restorative justice that allows me to confront them.  And right now, it also prevents me from proceeding with my suit against my abuser because any award I receive may diminish my award from the Trust.  So, the bankruptcy is shielding him too.  My day in court?  No, but I'm a lucky one compared to those of my brothers who the SOLs prevent any sort of suit from proceeding.  For them their Council would be shielded and there is NO "day in court."

The problem for me is I know literally dozens of individuals whose lives were vastly improved because of Scouting and the BSA because of this suit will now fail to reach 10's and even 100's of thousands of youth that could benefit from the values/teachings and trainings along with the positive mentors in Scouting. I ran an inner city program for over 6 years that served hundreds of Scouts and Cubs and that program no longer exists. The council no longer has the resources to even properly support its traditional unit programs let alone staff and support the Scoutreach program. There was no good outcome in this for anyone but the lawyers and law firms that brought the suit. 

Wow, "dozens" who were positively impacted.  Tell that to the 82,000.  That said, the vast majority of Survivors I've spoken to, and even the TCC for the ost part in its comments, have said "We don't care about the future of Scouting AS LONG AS KIDS ARE SAFE."  Now, you claim that kids won't be positively impacted because of the bankruptcy?  That's complete bull$hit.  Survivors voted down the first plan and accepted a second one because for one reason the Youth Protection measures were significantly strengthened.  THAT will improve lives.  Units went out of business?  That is NOT the fault of the bankruptcy, it's the fault of mismanagement by the Council, District, National and ultimately the local market for which Scouting was not attractive.  How dare you blame current issues with the abuse that happened to many of us decades ago.  As well, read the words of the new BSA CEO who claims membership will double.  Seems to me that bankruptcy REORGANIZATION will help and not hurt.  As far as no good outcome, it isn't over yet and Survivors will judge that when we see our actual awards and come to grips with what that means.  So don't tell me what my outcome will be.  That's for me to decide.  Have law firms made money off of this?  Sure, and I will pay my attorney a third of what I see, gladly.  You get what you pay for and when billions are at stake you pay a lot.

I'm sorry that you were a part of this dark chapter. I hope you find healing. God Bless

While I appreciate the sentiment, I again urge you to do a VERY deep dive into this forum and others.  The legal analysis and discussion of the FACTS of this bankruptcy are a real education.  THAT is the best way to help Survivors.  First and foremost, understand how we got here, what we've been through, and respect that some of us want to see the Scouts continue, some want them to go away, and some don't care, but we ALL want kids to be safe and for Society to learn from what happened to us so it doesn't happen again.

Mods....I recognize that my tone is a bit aggressive but it's done respectfully to drive home a point or two and lend emotion to where it belongs.

82,000 is a paperwork number and still an unproven number.  That is the number of claims submitted, but was a surprise number by everyone from all sides.   We will never really know the real number

Since 1960s, BSA has had tens of millions of youth members.  I would not be surprised if 100 million plus.  So, is it a high level or not.  And then compare it to number of youth benefiting from scouting.  

If we argue on emotions, any single injury is bad.  Period. 

If we argue on numbers, then there is a real question if BSA better or worse than other organizations.  

[Eagle94-A1]

43 minutes ago, skeptic said:

...We are trying to get a real gathering of COR's who CAN fire the man, but finding the contacts is difficult when the office claims they cannot share that info.  Our current elect president seems to either not understand very well, or he is just a puppet, or it continues to seem....  

One SE told us how to manipulate the nominating process to get the folks who are "friendly" to council on committees and boards. So I wouldn't be suprised.

45 minutes ago, skeptic said:

 On top of it all, we were told they have closed our camp and are looking to find a new option which is aimed at selling by the SE who seems to have gotten himself veto power of some type.  An almost hundred year old camp that has been poorly administgrated for decades, but recently has shown huge success, even to out of area troops.  But with no camp the program becomes even more difficult to run well.   

That happened in my council. Local camp was sold. They said the reason was that it was costing almost $70/ camper to maintain. When volunteers looked at the raw data,  they noticed the data was manipulated to show a loss. They included capital expenses, and forgot to note the camp was closed for 7 months as a result. taking out the capital expense  made it $11/ Camper. But it would have been less because of the 7 months of weekend camp outs, district and council events, etc not taking place. They also conveniently forgot to include the previous 3 years data, which showed the camp was actually a money maker supporting the primary camp. However the amount it raised did not compare to the amount they sold it for. 

[Eagle1970]

10 hours ago, MYCVAStory said:

An organization is responsible for its volunteers and operations.  Period.  The law makes this clear.  Go watch the Netflix Documentary and pay close attention to its former legal counsel who says essentially "The problem wasn't the BSA, it was a few bad apples in it."  The lack of logic would be funny if it wasn't so sad.  Oh, and those few bad apples, one was a EMPLOYED by the BSA and raped me.

 

My abuse was also perpetrated by a BSA EMPLOYEE.  It doesn't lessen anything suffered by a scout abused by another boy.  But it DOES directly implicate BSA, with no way to mitigate responsibility.  Because of what I personally experienced, I hoped BSA would cease to function.  I stopped the cycle with my generation, as I refused to allow my children to participate.  The outcome that allows BSA to continue following BK is a big win for supporters of the organization.  And any talk of this token settlement for victims being a bad outcome for BSA is extremely insensitive and very uninformed.

[yknot]

1 hour ago, fred8033 said:

82,000 is a paperwork number and still an unproven number.  That is the number of claims submitted, but was a surprise number by everyone from all sides.   We will never really know the real number

Since 1960s, BSA has had tens of millions of youth members.  I would not be surprised if 100 million plus.  So, is it a high level or not.  And then compare it to number of youth benefiting from scouting.  

If we argue on emotions, any single injury is bad.  Period. 

If we argue on numbers, then there is a real question if BSA better or worse than other organizations.  

Arguing on the numbers it seems far worse. The next most egregious offender, the US Catholic Church, has had about 10,000 claims.  

[PaleRider]

Well the ivory tower did very little to protect us victims/survivers but done everything to protect the pedophiles and The Boy Scouts name.How are they gonna tell me the scouts will make you an outstanding member of society. Telling us scouts wil turn you into a fine man. How you gonna preach on what it takes to be productive member of society while protecting pedophiles?! Brother im really nit interested in anything you got to say.I guess your scout experience was wonderful but mine has been pure hell for 37 years of drinking,drugs,failedmarriage,nightmares. So  you chew on them facts. Im not the only one that feels this way.You gonna take up for the very ones that allowed this to happen.You really need to learn to be respectful to every single person's life that the BSA knowingly allowed to be ruined. Good day

[Ojoman]

11 hours ago, PaleRider said:

You really need to learn to be respectful to every single person's life that the BSA knowingly allowed to be ruined. Good day

I would hope that  i never make a disrespectful statement regarding any victim. The damage and scars that remain will impact you and others for life, no question. Sadly, there was and still is a learning curve on how to prevent and how to treat incidents of abuse. 90% of the cases were 30 or more years old. Some extended back half a century. The BSA's ineligible volunteer files was the first step to try to keep kids safe. Back in the 60's and 70's there wasn't a lot of studies available and no national data bases for background checks. Ideally, when incidents happened they would have been reported and acted upon and I do know of a couple that were acted upon and I do not personally know of any that were swept under the rug (but the lawsuit says there were many). My issue is that the lawsuit did not go after the predators, their assets and finances. The entire blame was foisted on the BSA. Yes, I and my kids had a positive experience with the program. That does not mean we have zero empathy for victims. I have been friends for decades with one of my Scouts that was victimized by a family member and others outside of Scouting. Scouting was a real positive in his life and helped get him past that trauma. I wish you all the best in pulling you life together... Take care and God Bless...

[MYCVAStory]

27 minutes ago, Ojoman said:

Sadly, there was and still is a learning curve on how to prevent and how to treat incidents of abuse. 90% of the cases were 30 or more years old. Some extended back half a century.

 

27 minutes ago, Ojoman said:

My issue is that the lawsuit did not go after the predators, their assets and finances.

Tell the 10,000 Survivor claimants since then that the abuse cases going back so long ago should make them feel better?  If anything, the fact that the BSA had such a long history of abuse AND knew enough to fix it should sting even more for those who were abused more recently.  As far as lawsuits, they remain against the abuser and every day I want mine to remember that the day is approaching when mine will commence.  What doesn't remain, are the lawsuits against any enablers within the BSA.  Time will tell whether that's a topic the DOJ will be looking into. 

[Ojoman]

2 hours ago, MYCVAStory said:

 

Tell the 10,000 Survivor claimants since then that the abuse cases going back so long ago should make them feel better?  If anything, the fact that the BSA had such a long history of abuse AND knew enough to fix it should sting even more for those who were abused more recently.  As far as lawsuits, they remain against the abuser and every day I want mine to remember that the day is approaching when mine will commence.  What doesn't remain, are the lawsuits against any enablers within the BSA.  Time will tell whether that's a topic the DOJ will be looking into. 

The sad fact remains that there is no foolproof way to end abuse towards children. I wish there was. From what I have read and heard abuse against adolescents has increased, especially with the advent of social media. I have contributed to the training of many, many volunteers in the area of youth protection. As a parent and grandparent nothing is more important than to do all we can to see that predators of any kind are held in check. Any program that served youths is a target for those attracted to them. There is really no way to identify predators until a victim comes forward. That is the sad and tragic reality. No one should ever be an enabler for child abusers, not even just by ignoring or looking the other way. Every person should be a mandatory reporter. Another real problem is that most child welfare agencies are understaffed and abuse reports don't always get the attention that they should. Living in an imperfect world with imperfect systems and people is not an excuse but it is the reality. I hope you get your day in court and that justice prevails. 

 

[johnsch322]

3 hours ago, Ojoman said:

I would hope that  i never make a disrespectful statement regarding any victim.

You have and you continue. If you do not have the will to research and continue to make erroneous statements than you are disrespecting all survivors. 

3 hours ago, Ojoman said:

Sadly, there was and still is a learning curve on how to prevent and how to treat incidents of abuse. 90% of the cases were 30 or more years old.

Yes, more of the claims are for incidents more than 30 years old. It has been established that men are likely to acknowledge sexual abuse that happened to them in their mid 30's. Because of that there is most likely a major number of cases in the past 23 years that occurred, but no claim has been made.  A tremendous of knowledge is available on how to prevent abuse and how to treat survivors is available. Unfortunately, not of all of the prevention methods are being used (BSA says its cost prohibitive and clumsy to implement. Just read some of the posts on these forums to confirm). 

 

3 hours ago, Ojoman said:

The BSA's ineligible volunteer files was the first step to try to keep kids safe.

I differ with you on this point. I think it was more intended to keep the BSA's own reputation safe. Why else would they have been secret files that BSA wouldn't share with other organizations and even deny the existence of? In front of a Congressional committee a BSA official said they had no CSA issues.

 

3 hours ago, Ojoman said:

Ideally, when incidents happened they would have been reported and acted upon and I do know of a couple that were acted upon and I do not personally know of any that were swept under the rug (but the lawsuit says there were many).

The question is and always be who they got reported to and what role did the BSA have in under reporting issues.

 

3 hours ago, Ojoman said:

My issue is that the lawsuit did not go after the predators, their assets and finances. The entire blame was foisted on the BSA.

I have pointed this out to you previously, but you don't seem to understand the bankruptcy is not a lawsuit. It was a business move by the BSA to prevent lawsuits that had been filed already and prevent lawsuits from being filed in the future. BSA knew that they would not survive going to State Courts and facing survivors in that forum. 

 

3 hours ago, Ojoman said:

That does not mean we have zero empathy for victims.

Your posts show that you may not have zero, but your irresponsible comments show close to zero.