Eagle1993

9 minutes ago, yknot said:

Except who other than us is paying any attention at all? Scouters have been told to keep their heads down and focus on their local units. So many are doing so. 

I expect a lot of council leaders watched Monday.  There was over 450 on the call at one point and the last two days <300.  I expect many knew to watch Devang Desai's testimony.  Those power point slides came up very early ... so you didn't need to watch long.

That said ... I expect for most it wasn't a surprise.   

16 minutes ago, PACAN said:

Two comments:

 

@Eagle 1993    80 Councils from 250 now.   I'm sure a lot of SEs puckered.

 

That AND the possibility of freezing of pensions.

Interesting points now coming up.  Basically, no defendants want to take sex abuse claims to trial.  The losses are big.  Juries award large amounts.  In addition, there was a case where the jury determined the case was outside SOL; however, still awarded $15K with no reason given.  The witness is basically indicating why the TDPs are valid (and why insurance is probably wrong when they say they are too high).

1 hour ago, Muttsy said:

She is awful. It was a 20 minute cross x that she's dragging out to four hours or longer. 

She is rigid in her thinking and demonstrates little understanding of how sexual abuse cases are actually handled in the tort system. 

She spent 90 mind-deadening minutes to make the point that the claim review process is not the tort system.. Yes you are right Ms. McNally. Does your client prefer to face 84,000 claims in the tort system? If the claims review process is gong to adopt all of the procedures found in the tort system, then this Plan cannot be confirmed. 

 

 

I left for a while and just rejoined and she is going on now about the neutral.  Yes, if insurance doesn't want to pay the bill they could get sued.  They can fight these in court.  She was asking if insurance could force this into court (I think they can by simply refusing to pay).  However, she really doesn't like the fact they enter court with a $ amount from the process.  I'm confused and she pretty much burnt a day and from what I can tell, almost no impact on the case.

Today lawyer from certain insurers is cross examining an expert witness from BSA ... one who has some expertise in TDPs.  Tried to get the expert thrown out, was denied.  Now questioning vetting of claims, how it will be possible to really go through all of these claims and likely the cost of the trust and timing, etc.  

I have no idea why she is going down this path.  So far, I haven't heard anything of note but perhaps others are listening more closely.

Further discussions about how to get around SOLs.  For example, in Idaho and then elsewhere, plaintiffs used the fraudulent concealment claims.  BSA legal team said they saw the legal theory increased after the success in Idaho.  

There are also other ways around SOLs depending on states.

Certain insurers going after SOLs, showing case after case being dismissed depending on SOL.  Also showing Kansas dismissing revival due to constitutional issues.  Lawyer claiming this is the only case they are aware of where claims outside SOLs are included.

Basically, looking to prepare to show that cases outside SOLs do not have valid claims. (my guess)  Note I'm not a lawyer or judging this opinion, just highlighting what was discussed in trial.

Missed this morning so far.

Yesterday ... my takeaways.

• Bankruptcy
  • US Trustee's path is clear .... go after the fact that some releases are being given with no contribution.  One of their arguments will appear to be the releases are too broad.  
  • The Guam group ... confusion. I wasn't following closely but a lot of objections and it seemed like she was just rehashing prior discussions.
  • AIG & certain insurers ... their path is that the Bates report proves no further insurance settlements are required as the plan was fully funded without them.  They will argue the TDPs should be reduced.
• BSA Post bankruptcy
  • I wasn't expecting this would be covered
  • A lot of focus on WHY certain changes were made to the Philmont executive committee power point slide deck.
    • Why was the quote from Eisenhower removed ... "who is BSA at war with"
    • Why was $400M removed from the donor list ... 
    • Why was 250 to 80 councils removed and changed.
    • COs ... major changes could exist (admitted we need updated agreements and ability to have meeting spaces without COs)
    • Etc.
  • Certain insurers seem to be preparing an argument that BSA has clear plans to raise money and reduce costs (it was confirmed in court that BSA agrees we have too many camps (not bases).  
    • So ... if BSA has these great plans (that were not in their business plan) then they should be able to cover more costs of the bankruptcy (my speculation as to why AIG went after this line of attack

As discussed earlier, I believe JLSS will likely confirm this plan as is or with minor changes.  However, district court could reject it and these groups are preparing lines of appeal.

To me ... the good news is that National BSA is aware of the membership, CO and financial situation they face post bankruptcy and they plan to address it head on.  There was slides about what services councils will get from National vs what they can provide locally.  National wants to make sure all $ that they get from councils is spent on program and not wasted.  They had a slide about building trust with councils.  However, it also appears they (National) know they cannot wait for 250 councils and 10,000s of volunteers to come to a consensus.  I expect they will have to force changes to survive.  I just hope it is transparent and not hidden in questionable surveys.

Just now, ThenNow said:

Foundation for appeal is being laid.

I expect much of the hearing will be laying foundations for appeal.  JLSS will approve this plan.  I expect most know that.

2 minutes ago, PaleRider said:

Didn't Kosnoff get in trouble for tweeting what was going on during one of the hearings?

He was live tweeting a deposition and exposing info that may have been privileged.  Apparently, someone was on video taking cellphone pictures today of the hearing.  

Remember back when we discussed here that we were shocked BSA allowed the Bates report to be filed on the docket.  We thought it was good to have in mediation, but surprised they put it on the record.  Now that is an issue.  BSA and others are attempting to prevent the Bates report from being in evidence.  AIG is attempting to get that in.  Why?  Because AIG is saying they don't need to provide anything as everyone is paid in full per BSA (Bate's report).

Take this in addition to the Hartford deal as bad moves by the BSA.  This isn't 20/20 hindsight ... we called this out immediately after the filing that it was likely a mistake.  

Now, I have no idea if it will have any impact, but it is currently causing issues.

21 minutes ago, T2Eagle said:

Any discussion at all about how they plan to accomplish all those mergers, as BSA has said throughout this process, and how has been pretty well established, LCs are independent non profits.  Each LC board would have to decide to dissolve itself as a corporation and agree to join whatever corporation is being set up.  That's not going to be popular with LCs that are solvent and have just gone through a lot of pain and paid a lot of money into a plan that they're told was designed to protect them.

No details, just PPT level info.  10 regions, 8 councils by region and the statement in a note "preemptive consolidation". 

Edit ... They also had a statement about too much collaboration slows us down.  Take that as a sign on how this will be  done.

Ok, there is a break in the hearing.  I'm working while the hearing is in the background.  From what I can gleam, AIG is asking how BSA executive committee was involved in pulling together the plan and also to clarify what they plan to do post bankruptcy. 

Speculation here ... it is almost as if AIG is laying out a case that BSA is attempting to dump most of the cost on insurers, sandbag their current financial situation and then post bankruptcy, show major cost savings and big donors to quickly recover (while insurance bares the brunt of the cost).  AIG also spent a lot of time indicating the Coalition essential wrote the TDPs.  

My bet is that there are no more meetings going forward on how to respond post bankruptcy until the actual bankruptcy is finished.  I'm sure BSA is probably not happy 455+ people on the call heard their plans to merge councils and freeze pensions.

Just now, fred8033 said:

... Assuming future pensions.  Past and current pensions are an owed debt.  

Correct.  I would assume a pension freeze.

Now going through slides ... $400M from donors in by Dec 2023.  Place HA bases in trusts.  100% debt free by Dec 2023.

Focus on the $400M discussion that was removed as was the pension plan topic.  That is being discussed now.

Explore pension elimination.  Too much collaboration slows us down.

Focus on "preemptive consolidation" of councils.  Going through handwritten notes of DD.  10 regions, 8 councils per region

Ok now certain insurers (AIG counsel) is going over that board retreat at Philmont.

Just now, MYCVAStory said:

DANGER WILL ROBINSON!  "Recording, photographing, or live streaming of this hearing is prohibited."  And yes, is breaking the law.  BUT...after it's all over you can request an audio recording from the court.  We need one of those cool court artists!

  I figured anything like that wasn't allowed ... glad I made the correct decision!  

Now discussing details of interactions with the Methodist Church.

Just now, Eagle94-A1 said:

Any place we can find copies of those slides?

I think it was evidence provided by Devang Desai.  I was thinking of taking screenshots but then thought that may not be allowed.

To be clear ... there was a BSA executive meeting at Philmont in August of 2021 to discuss BSA post bankruptcy.  These slides were created to summarize that meeting.  Nothing is "approved" but it does give an indication of their thoughts.  The actual slides showed was a redline created by certain insurers to show the various edits of the final presentation.  So, for example, the original presentation had reduce councils from 250 to 80 and the updated (final) slides showed something like optimize or streamline councils.  Probably fair to not hard set to 80 ... however, it gives an idea that major council reduction is likely needed.

Overall, it looked like a fair assessment of BSA.  We have a public perception issue with youth protection.  We have been declining for a long time.  We will be in >$400M debt post bankruptcy.  Overall, I actually thought the slides made a lot of sense ... even if it could be upsetting.  Would be very interesting to get more details.

Sorry for typos, but a lot of slides and info.  Attempting to capture some of the points.

This was from late last year.  What is clear is:

- Some sort of comment about single scout program (not sure what they mean)

- Councils will be reduced ... not sure by how much, but you can see they were thinking >50% reduction

- Debt is large

- Outdoor was mentioned a lot

- Goal of eveyone getting to 1st class

- Expand recruiting & fundraising

- Improve youth safety

- CO model in flux (a bit) but may be getting better...

If you are going to watch any of this ... I'd recommend now.  They are going through the post bankruptcy strategy for BSA.  For example, th

#1 - Become the National Leader in Youth Safety 

#2 - Grow our Membership by making our program more relevant, easy fun.  

- Fully digital progrma

- Make a single program

#3 ... Slide showed reduct of council down to 80 (that we removed and changed with streamline)

Change how girls are included ... missed the details

I'm attempting to find the PPT being reviewed.  It shows what is going to happen to BSA post bankruptcy.  CO model may need to be replaced ... Councils in trouble ... $400M of debt.  Very interesting.

Apparently, it was from a Philmont executive meeting and a redline posted from Certain Insurers.

For camping I use StarBucks via packets.  They are easy to use and just require hot water.  I know others who look like they are doing science experiments when creating coffee ... yes, it does taste a bit better but the vias are good enough and much easier.

New topic created as confirmation hearing starting today.

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