DavidLeeLambert
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Posts posted by DavidLeeLambert
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15 hours ago, ValleyBoy said:
Was told at tonight's scout meeting that our CO might not recharter our troop & pack for next year. Our units are sponsored by a church and the Deacon board of the church will recommend at the next church business meeting that the church ends it relationship with the BSA [...]
Looks like we will be trying to find a new CO to sponsor a new troop and pack when both units drop at the end of the year. [...]
Anyone else having to go thru process with [their] unit[?] We do know of several [issues] that will come up in this process such as unit equipment and unit finances [toward which] which the present CO has not contributed any resources[]. .
As far as I know, not with any of the current units I am registered with, but:
- My younger kids' pack switched COs at the end of 2020, from a public school's "Parent Council" to a church
- Several boys joined my older sons' troop after the CO of their prior troop (a Catholic parish) was dissolved, mid-2020 (and the parish's dissolution was announced in late 2019)
- Another troop (or at least one boy and its Scoutmaster) has been meeting with our troop for over a year now because the fire-station where they used to meet has been closed to outside groups since the beginning of the COVID pandemic
- Another CO in a nearby town is a church that voted to dissolve, just this past week
- And I was a registered leader in a couple of LDS units until the end of 2019
I hope that "might" turns into a decision to keep your units (and perhaps even "support" them more meaningfully), but if not, switching to a different CO should be doable.
But a few days before the board meeting, and a few weeks before the end of the year, is not a good time to be organizing your equipment, reconciling your accounts, and tracking down copies of paperwork. Just as program planning for camping and advancement a year or more in advance is helpful, it's probably prudent for the committee to have plans in place in January of "what will we do if our CO won't recharter us in December?"
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1 hour ago, CynicalScouter said:
The LDS payout at $250 million is a game changer. LDS has 2,430 known claims against it. As Kosnoff pointed out, over half of claims filed do NOT list the CO, so let's double that to 5000.
- $250 million/2500 claims = $100,000
- $250 million/5000 claims = $50,000
A couple other ways of looking at those numbers...
The number of LDS Scouts at the end of 2019 was about 400 thousand (Salt Lake Tribune article), so that's about $625 per ultimate-year boy. That would have been almost 20 years of registration-fees at the 2019 rates, or probably fees for another 5 or 10 years as they've gone up (and will go up) since, or possibly more than the sum total of all registration fees ever paid before. It's also a fair complete-program cost (one Council camp or High Adventure trip, several weekend activities, literature, supplies, etc.) for one boy that year.
And the church had about 16 2/3 million members at the end of last year. So that's about $15.00 per man, woman, and child in the church, worldwide.; or $8029 per local congregation ("wards or branches", including those that did not ever charter a Scouting unit).
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So these actually hit the docket before the Town Hall, but the Debtors have filed two more motions asking for approval of non-abuse litigation settlements...
Romero Settlement Agreement
Knight Settlement Agreement
The Knight case was discussed on this forum when the lawsuit was first filed, and I believe it was mentioned in one of the bankruptcy threads but I'm having trouble finding that reference. A Scout was camping at a Council camp in Georgia, and a tree fell on his tent while he was in it; he died. The proposed settlement is for $7.1 million, against the March 2018-March 2019 policy year; $1 million from a base policy with Old Republic with no aggregate limit, and the remaining $6.1 million from an excess policy with Old Republic with a $9 million aggregate limit. For that year, there were 18 Direct Abuse Claims that meet certain criteria, and only $248 thousand left to the limit on that particular excess policy (assuming the Lehr settlement is also approved, see below); but the motion says there is approximately $200 million left in other excess policies that would apply to that year.
The Romero case is from an accident in February 2016, where a Boy Scout was struck in the eye by an arrow while attending a "Mountain Man Rendezvous" in Nevada. The proposed settlement is for $2.5 million, against the March 2015-March 2016 policy year. That year had the same structure of two Old Republic policies with additional layers above, and approximately $7,144,000 of the Old Republic excess policy in that year would remain. For that year, there were 22 Direct Abuse Claims that meet certain criteria.
Lehr Settlement Agreement
The Lehr incident was also during the 2018-19 policy year. An adult leader was injured on July 3, 2018, while attempting the "Leap of Faith" at Summit Bechtel Reserve. The settlement is for $3 million (in addition to dental costs of less than $31 thousand already incurred and paid).
BSA filed the Lehr settlement near the end of April, and the Coalition objected to it. However, on Friday the Coalition withdrew its objection.
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16 hours ago, CynicalScouter said:
[7] A seventh group made up of all the above 6 subgroups
Minor quibble: the 7th group was a uniform sampling across all claims NOT in the earlier groups. See the Neumann declaration, D.I.1972 attachment 6 page 3 (page 77 of the PDF):
"We then sorted the Abuse Claims by this random number. [...] We then limited the remaining claims on the randomly sorted list to those that were not coded into any of the six sub-categories and selected the first 200 claims from that group."
17 hours ago, CynicalScouter said:If the insurers had tried to randomly sample 1,400 out of ALL 82,500 claims, then maybe.
Did she say something that hinted that, or is that just your guess?
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1 hour ago, Gilwell_1919 said:
I cannot prove what happened in the ether. People filed claims on the Official BSA portal... and then they were contacted by AIS. Does that prove colluding? Maybe... maybe not. But... From my end... sure... I stand by my analysis that BSA was doing this.
It's possible that this is what happened:
- Your friends contacted the Council
- Council told them to submit a claim
- They submitted claims
- They were then randomly cold-called (or cold-texted, or cold-emailed) by AIS intake specialists with slack time. (I was never cold-called, but maybe they were in the "absolute optimum" demographic, 60-year-old veterans with youth Scouting mentioned on their resume, or something like that.)
- During their responses to the cold-calls, they admitted (or insufficiently failed to conceal) that they had already filed claims. The AIS intake person picked up on that and ran with it.
More likely than a leak somewhere? Not sure. Still bad for AIS? I'd say so. Still bad for BSA? No, except that perhaps they should have done even more noticing or filed the motion to control lawyer advertisement earlier.
Edit: One other possibility, your friends did a Google search for "official BSA claims submit" and clicked on an advertisement rather than the official restructuring site, by mistake.
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A potential claimant has made a motion to the court requesting leave to file a claim, notwithstanding the Bar Date.
He says he saw some of the attorney advertisements last fall, but not the part about the Bar Date; and that he was never actually served with any notice of the case by the debtors. (In other words, the noticing program didn't really reach him.) He currently lives in Pennsylvania, but grew up in New Jersey, an "open window" state.
Also, "certain insurers" (American Zurich, etc.) have filed another objection to the Disclosure Statement and Plan, this one with specific suggestions for changing the wording of certain parts of the document.
They issued policies with "Self-Insured Retentions" (SIRs) for certain years. I guess one of those is even stronger than a deductible: with a deductible, the insurer doesn't pay out the deductible; with an SIR, the insurer doesn't pay out at all unless someone else pays out the SIR first.
And in all years they issued policies with an SIR of at least $1 million; in some years, $2 million or even $4 million. As they explain,
Quote"These SIR provisions will have a significant impact on the availability of insurance coverage here. The TDPs provide that every type of claim against Debtors has a 'Base Matrix Value' of less than $1 million. Thus, every claim allowed by the Settlement Trust at the Base Matrix Value would not be eligible for coverage under any of the Zurich Policies, even if all underlying coverage is exhausted, because every such claim would fall within the SIRs, which are Debtors’ responsibility to pay. The TDPs also provide that for claims in Tiers 1-3, the Settlement Trustee can, by exercising his discretion to apply certain Scaling Factors, allow claims in amounts exceeding $1 million. Assuming coverage is otherwise available, and [...], any such claim that fell within the policy period of a particular Zurich Policy would be entitled to payment from Zurich only to the extent the allowed claim value exceeded $1 million per occurrence, if the Debtors or the Settlement Trust paid the first $1 million per occurrence of the value of the claim."
They issued policies for the year March 1, 1989, to March 1, 1990, and from March 1, 1996, through March 1, 2007.
The number of cases in those years are...
1989 1105 1990 1125 1996 759 1997 662 1998 635 1999 538 2000 532 2001 369 2002 357 2003 325 2004 241 2005 227 2006 202 2007 171 Assuming that abuse occurred at an even rate during the relevant end-years, that's about 5860 claims covered by Zurich.
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8 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said:
Was anyone able to log in this morning? I'm getting "meeting not started".
Started at a little after 10:00. The parties had agreed on what to admit as evidence from depositions over the weekend, so Mosby and Ownsby will not be testifying. Recess at about 10:30 until 12:00, when oral argument will resume.
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A couple of developments in the case...
1. I thought I had posted the first half of this one before, but can't find it. A creditor committee in the bankruptcy of the Archbishop of Agaña (a Catholic diocese in Guam; filed for bankruptcy in January 2019) had filed a joinder to the TCC's objection to the Disclosure Statement.
Then the Archdiocese itself filed a joinder to an objection to the RSA.
Now the RC Diocese of Norwich, Connecticut, which filed for bankruptcy in July 2021, has filed an appearance and a joinder to an objection to the RSA.
2. AVA Law Group has dropped Kosnoff's lawyer (David Wilks) and retained new counsel to represent them (Christopher Simon and Kevin Mann).
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10 hours ago, SiouxRanger said:
Document No. 5971, "Massey Law Firm Claimant's Supplemental Objection..." is a good summary of the complex issues regarding claims and BSA's Plan. (Sorry, but I can't seem to figure out how to copy a link.)
Actually, that's not the first, nor the last, of at least a half-dozen objections on the docket that make basically the same argument... down to the table of council with assets above $30 million in paragraph 21. For example, see D.I.5967 and D.I.5968.
10 hours ago, SiouxRanger said:Claimant A has a claim against Abuser B, Local Council C, and Chartered Organization D. Perhaps against Insurer E.
Claimant A DOES NOT HAVE a claim against the AVERAGE of Abusers, Local Councils, Chartered Organizations, and insurers.
That is a good summary.
I would add, in some cases, a claim against "facilities" place F. I think the case of some units regularly meeting at a place that was not owned by the Chartering Organization was already more common than the generalities in the Disclosure suggest, and of course a lot of packs and troops conducted outings at national and state parks, sometimes with the help of private outfitters, or camped on private property at the invitation of the owners ("old Mr. Bob has some rural property where his buddies go deer hunting, he says the Troop can camp there any time except deer season so that's what we do a couple times a year"), or even went "glamping" at private tourist attractions.
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On 8/4/2021 at 12:32 PM, Eagle94-A1 said:
Not everyone in the files were arrested and convicted. OldScout448 mentions how one abuser did not have charges pressed by the parents, but was placed in those files. One person I know who was placed in the IVF did have a criminal investigation done, and was essentially exonerated by the investigators.
On 8/4/2021 at 12:54 PM, ThenNow said:I think we need to keep in mind that fabricating abuse is rare, though I’m happy to exclude political and financial motives in the recent climate. As a victim, I hate it. “Entirely sure” is a very high bar that would likely negate a tremendous number of viable cases, at least before significant investigation. Young boys are quiet about these things and getting them talking details can be difficult.
Hence the requirements in YPT (and similar training I had to go through for my church) that adults take an initial youth report of anything that sounds like abuse at face value, and personally report it to the authorities; and report anything that looks like deliberate or careless noncompliance with the rules internally within the organization.
But there's a difference between taking a child's report at face value for the purposes of starting an investigation and taking immediate steps to make sure the child is safe on the one hand, and being completely credulous about a story that has lain dormant for more than half the lifetime of an aged adult on the other.
I wonder about some of claimants in this case, not just the thousands who submitted claim-forms with basic details missing (or on whose behalf certain attorneys submitted such forms), but even some of the parties who have written letters to the Judge.
Here's how one recent letter, from "T.K.", [D.I.5749], begins...
"Your honor,
"This, my second letter to you is to clarify any misunderstandings as per my first letter to you."
(There are other letters from "T.K." on the docket, but they don't match this writer's handwriting or the details in this letter, so perhaps his other letter was lost in the mail, or misaddressed, or perhaps it was filed as his claim.)
"I've written other similar letters before, except for the 'scouts' part. When events and circumstances repeat themselves enough times, that I'm essentially 'tipped-off' that my current letter for help was not successful, by also the behavior of enemies. [...]"
"I thought it a necessary gesture to tell my sister about the BSA litigation and my attorney [redacted], so I am confident about my assumption of my sister contacting you, the BSA, my attorney, etc. to cause harm. | So if they did communicate with you, they lied."
The writer goes on to say, as far as I can tell, that he worked/volunteered as an undercover drug informant while still in High School, in the mid-70's. The sister of one dealer was killed as retribution for various dealers being caught in a sting. The writer then says "... her brother threatened me with a gun, threatening to rape my little sister." He told his Scoutmaster and his sister (assuming he only has one sister, that would be the same sister who was threatened, and who now might be contacting the BSA to contradict his story) about the threat, and "one or both put the badmouth on me right away." That's the only mention of his Scoutmaster in the entire 15-page letter.
He does claim that reports that he is a registered sex offender, performed a drive-by shooting, pushed dope while in the Army, committed burglaries, and took "psycho-meds" are all untrue, and that the NCIC record is for "someone with my same name".
I've seen other letters that have more details about the actual abuse (or appear to have them, hidden by redactions), followed by allegations that the writer took drugs, got drunk, was abusive to spouse and children, committed other crimes, etc., all in reaction to the abuse. That all makes sense as plausible consequences, but the older the claimant is, the more time has elapsed during which he didn't tell anyone, the less external evidence he has that he even was in Scouts at all, and the more serious his intermediate drug-use, commitment or incarceration has been, the harder it will probably be to convince a jury that any particular person or organization is responsible for his current challenges.
In other words, someone who submitted a claim-form or wrote a letter may sincerely believe that certain people did certain things to him in 1965 or 1975, but if he later took LSD or some other drug, did the "bad trip" alter his memory? Perhaps he really was abused, but by a different person, and the drugs altered his memory of who abused him or where it happened? Perhaps he had a consensual sexual experience as a young adult (or while above the age of consent under state law or actual community custom at the time), and the drugs caused him to misremember his age and the fact of the consent? Or perhaps the drugs caused him to remember a report he saw on TV once as something that happened to him? Or if he was in solitary confinement in prison, could that have had a similar mind-altering effect?
At the hearing where she said she would go forward with the Rule 2009 motion, the Judge asked the attorneys to also brief her about the "thousands" of letters she had received. Actually, it's not quite that many. Each letter received goes on the docket twice, once as "SEALED", not viewable by the public, and once as "REDACTED". As of August 4th, there were only 1,150 such "REDACTED" letters on the docket.
And one of the attorneys who spoke at the most-recent hearing said that only about half of the letters appear to be from claimants connected with AIS.
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On 7/31/2021 at 10:29 PM, CynicalScouter said:
Timothy David Kosnoff is admitted to the practice of law and an active member of the Washington State Bar.
https://www.mywsba.org/PersonifyEbusiness/LegalDirectory/LegalProfile.aspx?Usr_ID=000000016586
Whoever said he wasn't an attorney any longer was misinformed.
What MAY have happened (pure speculation) is he was admitted to practice in Texas and let that lapse OR he let his Washington State Bar admission lapse and then became active again.
There are a couple of things going on here:
- When the insurance companies first tried to serve Kosnoff, they tried to serve him at his Texas office address (the one on his Washington registration) and at a marina in Puerto Rico where he was believed to keep his yacht. They did not accomplish personal service at either place, and in their report of the attempts they noted that he's not licensed to practice in either of those jurisdictions.
- Kosnoff's divorce papers require him to pay spousal support to his ex-wife as long as he continues to practice law. Before the end of 2019, he sent her a letter saying he was retiring, and he has not paid any spousal support for 2020 or 2021. Yet, here he is on Twitter offering opinions about the case, and being interviewed for infomercials, and having a financial stake in a law firm, and even being counsel of record for thousands of claimants.
At the last hearing, the Judge asked "Who speaks for AIS?" and "So when AIS ... sent out advertisements, what were they saying? Join something that's leaderless?" After Mr. Wilks' answer, in which he described AIS as "a movement", she said, "Movements have leaders" and "AIS has, in fact, put itself before this court, and I need to know who they are."
Somewhere in there she also said that real attorneys do not ask their clients to write directly to the Court.
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So I saw a story in my feed about a (non-Scout) summer camp in New Hampshire that ended its season near the end of the first week...
The ‘Fyre Fest’ of overnight camps closed after 6 days
QuoteEveryone can agree that Camp Quinebarge did not go as planned.
The rustic overnight camp abruptly shut down earlier this month after just six days. Camp directors informed parents, who had shelled out $3,400 for two weeks, that they needed to pick up their children the next morning, following a “summer of challenges” capped off by delays from the camp’s food supplier that made continuing untenable.
The decision to close the 85-year-old camp in Moultonborough, N.H., in the middle of the summer left campers bereft, counselors stewing, and some parents furious. Soon, stories began to circulate of problems that went much deeper than late deliveries: [...]
Maybe it's just a badly-run private camp, but my own son's Council-run Scout Camp could have had to shut down like that mid-season this summer (although the price for two weeks at the camp in the story is ten times the cost of a week at the Council camp).
Barely a couple weeks before camp, Council sent out e-mail looking for staffers... a list of 15 or 20 positions across four camps, still unfilled.
My son's troop showed up, and there was still no head cook. My sons' scoutmaster volunteered to fill that role unpaid, and took an extended vacation from his day-job to stay on a few more weeks.
Scouts taking the Leatherwork merit badge had to share kits among multiple youth; likewise scouts taking Space Exploration had to share rockets.
Are Scout camps elsewhere having trouble with food deliveries, illness, poorly trained staff, or simple understaffing this summer? If so, is there a common root cause: COVID, the bankruptcy, both together, something else?
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So Thursday July 22nd was the deadline to object to the Restructuring Support Agreement as such (rather than to the Plan and Disclosure more generally). Several parties did so, including the estate of a deceased Non-Abuse Litigation claimant [D.I.5711], the Catholic and Methodist Ad-Hoc Committees jointly [D.I.5676], the LDS Church [D.I.5674] joined by the Episcopal Church [D.I.5677], and about 250 abuse claimants represented by about a half-dozen firms [D.I.5682, plus a few joinders].
However, the biggest objections are from Century. Redacted versions appeared on the docket on Friday.
CENTURY’S OBJECTIONS TO THE DEBTORS’ MOTION FOR ENTRY OF AN ORDER, PURSUANT TO SECTIONS 363(b) AND 105(a) OF THE BANKRUPTCY CODE, (I) AUTHORIZING THE DEBTORS TO ENTER INTO AND PERFORM UNDER THE RESTRUCTURING SUPPORT AGREEMENT AND (II) GRANTING RELATED RELIEF [D.I.5723, https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/9ce30206-3b08-48c0-9909-76c18b9134b2_5723.pdf ]
CENTURY’S OBJECTION TO THE PAYMENT OF THE COALITION’S LAWYERS IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE DEBTORS’ MOTION FOR ENTRY OF AN ORDER, PURSUANT TO SECTIONS 363(b) AND 105(a) OF THE BANKRUPTCY CODE, (I) AUTHORIZING THE DEBTORS TO ENTER INTO AND PERFORM UNDER THE RESTRUCTURING SUPPORT AGREEMENT, AND (II) GRANTING RELATED RELIEF [D.I.5724, https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/ae84e517-2cbe-44a1-8924-934c843388c5_5724.pdf ]
The first motion points out several problems with the RSA and/or the process that produced it, such as:
- "The RSA Fails to Obtain the Core Relief Expected in a Restructuring Support Agreement: Support for a Plan": Not one actual claimant has signed the RSA.
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"The RSA Requires the Debtors to Pursue a Plan that is Likely Not
Confirmable Because it is Affirmatively “Insurance Prejudicial” Rather
Than Insurance Neutral" - The RSA "cedes complete control of the case" to the Abuse Claimant Representatives. "Given these facts, granting the Motion would only serve to further distance the Debtors from their other constituencies—to the detriment of all parties."
The second motion specifically attacks the $10.5 million one-time payment and ongoing $950,000 fee to Brown Rudnick.
- The payments are subject to the "Substantial Contribution" standard. But ... "A self-serving declaration cannot satisfy the burden to prove a substantial contribution to the estate."
- The Coalition can't meet that standard in any case, because of its nature. (Quoting Kosnoff's email about "we control 80% of the case", etc., again.)
- "Mere Participation in Settlement Does Not Constitute[] a Substantial Contribution."
- "Any Services that the Coalition Claim to Render that Are not Intended to Advance their Own Interests are Duplicative of the TCC.
- And the RSA also poses an "irreconcilable conflict" for State Court council
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An attorney representing three abuse plaintiffs in three separate cases in the State of New York has filed a motion to allow the stay to be lifted, only for the purpose of adding a Chartered Organization to each case before the Statute of Limitations window closes again.
- Case 806601/2020 in Erie County. Against the Greater Niagara Frontier Council and alleged abuser Robert L Eberhardt. Adding Rescue Volunteer Hose Company No 1 of Cheektowaga, NY. Victim born about 1968, abuse from 1977-1981 (Cub Scout program).
- Case 807731/2020 in Erie County. Against the Greater Niagara Frontier Council; the alleged abuser, John J Gruber, is deceased. Adding St Paul's RCC Church Society of Kenmore. Victim born about 1964, abuse from 1974-1975 (Boy Scout program).
- Case E173403/2020 in Niagara county. Against the Longhouse council and Peter A Byrne. Adding St Margaret's Church d/b/a Holy Name Society. Victim born about 1954, abuse in 1966 (Boy Scout program).
None of the alleged-abuser names in these three cases appear in the public portion of the IV files. I did find a news article (WKBW Buffalo, August 2019) quoting a different plaintiff who also alleged abuse by Robert Eberhardt. Neither of the living alleged abusers appears on the New York sex offender registry.
I don't know whether any of the plaintiffs are abuse claimants in the bankruptcy case, but they probably are, since they filed their cases in July and October, 2020. However, BSA itself is actually not a defendant (yet) in any of these three cases; in each one, only the local council is named.
807731_2020_Brian_D_Driscoll_v_Brian_D_Driscoll_SUMMONS___COMPLAINT_1.pdf 806601_2020_John_C_Bobeck_v_John_C_Bobeck_SUMMONS___COMPLAINT_1.pdf E173403_2020_Robert_A_Rein_v_Robert_A_Rein_SUMMONS___COMPLAINT_1.pdf
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45 minutes ago, MattR said:
That said, this document still only represents, at most, 13k cases out of 82k. Do you think that 16% is the tail wagging the dog, so to speak?
The insurance companies' implication, and a plausible suspicion, is that the specific claims and lawyers they've highlighted are only the ones who were sloppy enough to get caught. A lawyer who waited five minutes between cursorily signing claim forms, or who used a VPN when signing, might not have showed up in their first analysis.
And there are still thousands of claimants who didn't specify a CO, and almost 40,000 where the claimant mentioned a CO but the alleged Council (or National, for post-1999 claims) has checked their rosters and finds no record of the claimant ever being registered.
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An attorney has filed his appearance on behalf of several Knights of Columbus chapters.
And BSA has filed a response to a "Third-party" (probably an abuse claimant) who filed a motion to correct his address on court records.
Motion says "On [date] the Third-party received a correspondence from Omni Agent Solutions, asserting they represent the petitioners in the matter, and advising of a hearing", and mentions that the letter he did receive was delivered "in an institutional setting"; response attaches a copy of a letter from Omni to the movant, beginning:
"We have received your letter and updated our database with your correct address information as provided. We are not attorneys so we cannot give any legal advice on your claim or the case. We do not send out updates to the case other than what the courts instruct us to disseminate. Below is a general update for you of the case."
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21 hours ago, Muttsy said:
Why is there no mention of the DC theory?
Well, BSA did mention the DC revival in their First Day Motions Informational Brief [D.I. 4], filed on the first day of the case, page 5:
https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/799040_4.pdf
"In January 2020, for example, a group of plaintiffs filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia alleging that the District’s recent revival-window legislation permits plaintiffs to bring previously time-barred claims, regardless of where the abuse occurred or where the plaintiff resides. [footnote: See Does 1-8 v. Boy Scouts of America, No. 20-00017 (RJL) (D.D.C. 2020).]"
But so far the theory is just that, a theory, untested in court, and from what I can see it wouldn't save every claim either. Here's what I believe is the relevant part of the statute:
"(a)Paragraph (11) is amended to read as follows:
'(11)for the recovery of damages arising out of sexual abuse that occurred while the victim was less than 35 years of age— the date the victim attains the age of 40 years, or 5 years from when the victim knew, or reasonably should have known, of any act constituting sexual abuse, whichever is later;'.
(b)A new paragraph (12) is added to read as follows:
'(12)for the recovery of damages arising out of sexual abuse that occurred while the victim was 35 years of age or older—5 years, or 5 years from when the victim knew, or reasonably should have known, of any act constituting sexual abuse, whichever is later.' "So the only claimants it could help are those who were born on or after February 18th, 1980. The greatest peak of claims was roughly 1968 to 1974, and claims-per-year was consistently decreasing throughout the '80s. There's the alternate clause "knew, or reasonably should have known", but since the LA Times published its "Inside the Boy Scouts' 'Perversion Files'" series in late 2012, that would be tough case to prove for any claimant who first filed in 2018 or later.If a BSA lawsuit based on that DC law went to trial, I also imagine that the defendants would argue that BSA did not commit any specific acts that significantly contributed to any abuse in DC. For example, the IV Files were kept in New Jersey and then Texas, the respective BSA headquarters.But that's probably one factor, among several, why even the "closed" state plaintiffs are being offered a factor of 1% to 10%, and why all claimants with substantially-complete, timely, and properly-signed forms are being offered the "Expedited Payment".-
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16 hours ago, ThenNow said:
If [a claimant was] abused in Gray 1- Gray 3, how does the Trustee determine into which shade of Gray bucket [the claimant is] dropped? What [if] the abuse Tier in the G1 is different that in G2 is different than that in G3?
So I can't cite the exact Plan page from memory, but I believe it said that each claim would be classified based on the most-serious incident of abuse, and the openness bucket would be based on any state in which the claim "could have been" presented in civil court. I would interpret that in favor of the claimant, so that if there's a connection between the claim and two states, one more-open that the other, the more-open one would count; but if the TDP could be interpreted otherwise, that might be something to object to before it's sent out for vote.
Where it gets tricky is when the most-serious abuse is in a closed state, but the claimant also reports less-serious abuse in an open state. For example, suppose a Scout was registered in a troop near his home in Utah (closed). The troop took a trip to the Four Corners monument, and he was abused, at the lowest level of severity, while standing in either the Arizona corner or the Colorado corner (both open), but doesn't remember which. Then after he returned home, at the next near-home troop meeting, he was abused again, at the highest level of severity. Should he get the highest-tier base score multiplied by the "Closed" modifier? Or the lower-tier base score multiplied by the "Open" modifier?
In such a case perhaps the Trustee could apply an aggravating factor, or mitigate the closed status using a factor in the upper end of the range rather than the bottom. But if the TDP could be clearer about that situation than it is, that could also be raised as an objection.
Here's a map showing which states are which tiers, for "closed" claimants in each state.
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Slight update on the rosters...
May 19th was the "Roster Production Date", when BSA and Councils shared some information with the TCC and the Coalition.
In turn, TCC shared some summary files with counsel for claimants (and with self-represented claimants). I've done some analysis on those files.
Out of roughly 82,500 non-duplicate claims (and claim numbers up to 106665), there were 40392 claims that Councils checked against their records. (The others might have not specified a Council, or specified only a post-1999 claim, or specified a council that didn't even bother searching because they already know that they do not have records for the dates in question.) Of those,
- 11618 were found;
- 29203 were not found;
- 429 were mixed found/not found (claims that specified multiple councils).
Also out of the roughly 82,500 non-duplicate claims, BSA did a search on 14175 of them. Of those,
- 3404 were found
- 1150 were reported as "Possible match"
- 9621 were not found
And 5629 of the claims were searched for in both places.
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On 6/29/2021 at 11:22 AM, RobertCalifornia said:
[W]hy are so many claimants still not assigned to a state or council? It is not difficult to ascertain if a person lived in X town or attended X camp in X year, there is a high probability that person was in X council.
As you note, the TCC mentioned at an earlier town hall that there were at least some cases where a claimant had left the council blank, and more or less stated the CO in the narrative for the corresponding field, and it had been coded as "Unknown" in the file they received. The same could have happened on a few forms for the council.
And not all councils are statewide. Some are, or were, only a single city, or only a few counties. When I was a boy, I was part of the Detroit Area Council based on the address of the CO when it first registered the unit... but then the CO moved and met at a different location, which would have been in a different council. I don't know whether the unit actually changed councils, either while I was a Scout in it or afterward. I suspect not, because it still had the same unit-number in 2019. (Although the two councils eventually merged, so either way BSA would code a claim against that unit as Michigan Crossroads Council today.)
But it shouldn't be hard to file a new copy of just that one page of the claim form to specify a CO and a Council. The number of "no Council" claims hasn't changed much since the TCC called for amendments at the first Town Hall, which suggests that there is a fraction of claimants that just can't provide that information at all.
I compared the list of claim numbers from one of Century's objections (a batch of "same-signature claims) to some information shared by the TCC, and about 90% of those claims still did 't have Council information, a few months later.
So it seems plausible that a significant fraction of claimants are "lying low" and doing nothing to supplement or clarify their claims.
On 6/29/2021 at 11:22 AM, RobertCalifornia said:I just wonder how good the national records are for the past.
National does not have any rosters from before 1999, when they turned on the current registration database. Many of the councils have produced rosters for claimants who claimed against them. A few councils, perhaps a dozen-odd or so, including Michigan Crossroads, have produced no rosters... perhaps because they're playing hardball in the negotiations, or perhaps because they actually don't have any pre-1999 youth records (lost during council moves/consolidations, lost due to natural disaster, destroyed pursuant to an interpretation of state privacy law, destroyed pursuant to a duly-approved document retention policy... the reasons could be innocent, nefarious, or open to dispute.)
On 6/29/2021 at 11:22 AM, RobertCalifornia said:We know there are people that participated in scouting, yet because mom did not sign the form or send money...that scout never was registered.
When the records for a certain unit ended up in my hands, I found a mostly-complete application form for a boy, about 8 or 10 years earlier, who I did not know. So I'll agree that a few claimants might plausibly argue that that could have happened in their case.
There are also IVF entries where a volunteer was kept "off the books" for anywhere from a few months to several years, and some units have notoriously kept unofficial lists of Merit Badge counselors, and in these very forums there was a hue and cry when the new background-check authorization was added to the application form.
I don't know how many complete units were "off the books", or how many units kept certain boys or leaders "off the books" for an extended time. In some cases that could indeed have been part of the abuser's scheme. But if a boy's mother actually never signed the form and never paid anything, that is arguably a factor that would lessen, if not completely eliminate, BSA's or the Local Council's liability.
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One more non-abuse claim withdrawn, and the attorneys who represented the claimant are withdrawing from the case as well.
"Estate of Sherrye Howell", claim #225, $750,000.
D.I 5404, 5405, 5406.
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8 hours ago, fred8033 said:
QUESTION ... What about the other lawsuits BSA was facing? Do they submit claims to the settlement trust? Specifically GSUSA seeking millions for BSA infringement and damages. If BSA gets out of bankruptcy, it's a new company and past debts are cleared. Does GSUSA then go after the settlement trust?
In short, no, GSUSA will not have a claim against the trust under the draft plan. They discuss (and complain about) their treatment in an Objection to an earlier draft plan, D.I.3579...
p. 6: "Specifically, the Disclosure Statement lacks information necessary to understand the feasibility of the Plan, the basis for the classification and treatment of Girl Scouts’ claims when compared to other Non-Abuse Litigation Claims."
p. 7: "Unlike the Convenience Claims and the General Unsecured Claims, both of which will receive a cash distribution either directly from the Debtors or from the Core Value Cash Pool, Non-Abuse Litigation Claims are limited to recovery from either (1) available insurance policies or proceeds, (2) proceeds from insurance settlement agreements, if any, or (3) co-liable non-debtors (if any) or their insurance proceeds. If the claimant is unable to recover the full amount of its claim from the aforementioned sources, it may recover upon an Allowed Convenience Claim in the lesser amount of $50,000 or the unsatisfied portion of the claim. [...]"
p. 9: "First, Girl Scouts has a claim for corrective advertising. [...] no less than $6,761,833.32."
"Second, Girl Scouts has a claim for disgorgement of Boy Scouts’ profits obtained based on Boy Scouts’ infringement of the Girl Scouts Marks. [...] | [...] no less than $4,998,301.00."
"Finally, Girl Scouts holds a claim for the costs of the Trademark Action, including reasonable attorneys’ fees. [...] Girl Scouts estimates that its claim for attorneys’ fees and costs is
in excess of $5.8 million and this claim continues to grow as the litigation continues. Furthermore, of this amount, approximately 40% of the claim, plus all of the ongoing increases of this amount, is a postpetition administrative expense claim."In other words, GSUSA says its claim is for at least $17 million, but is worried that it will get less than 1% of its proper recovery for actual damages... although it should get 100% of its post-bankruptcy legal fees back.
That $17.5 million represents about $585 per female Scouts BSA member in 2019, or $23 per BSA youth member (of any age or gender) right now, or $10 per GSUSA girl, or $212 per abuse claimant.
To address the first part of your question, there have been about a half-dozen wrongful-death lawsuits that were pending at the date of bankruptcy and that have received the Court's permission to settle with insurance, each for between a half-million and a million dollars. I'm not sure if there are any other pending wrongful-death claims or non-abuse personal injury claims, but if any are still open when the Plan goes into effect, they'll have an option to collect up to $50,000 as a class 5 Convenience Claim and otherwise take their chances with insurers and any other responsible parties as a class 7 Non-Abuse Litigation Claim.
All of this with the caveat that the approved Plan may be very different from the current draft, or could even be written from scratch by another party; so perhaps it's possible for the final plan to explicitly say that GSUSA is is a higher class and gets 100%, or is in a lower class and gets absolutely nothing, same as Delaware BSA LLC.
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On 6/19/2021 at 12:05 PM, Eagle1970 said:
What is the significance of the letter I received last night titled: " Service of Notice of Designation of Additional Permitted Parties Under Bar Date Order"? I understand what it says but don't get why an additional party is becoming involved.
Who are the additional parties? Your (ex-) local council, or (ex-) chartered organization? A new official committee? An insurer? Or someone else?
Basically, if it's what I think it is, it means that the lawyers (and perhaps even other personnel) for the additional specified party or parties can read the full details of your claim. They're still not supposed to share it further, or publish it to the world.
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6 hours ago, CynicalScouter said:
This is key:
QuoteIn January, the Michigan State Police notified Dana Nessel’s office that 1,700 of those sex-abuse claims were in the state. Her office said it now thinks that up to 3,000 victims were abused in the state.
For those trying to use the 84,000 as the metric for the amount of abuse in BSA, this is once again a reminder that number should NOT be used and was/is an undercount.
The 82,500 doesn't include victims who are dead and didn't tell their story to an heir, or who didn't see the advertisements or didn't connect them to their abuse, or who just chose to stay out of the bankruptcy for some reason. But I wouldn't assume so quickly that the the 82,500 should be immediately doubled, either. Consider:
- The TCC's numbers released in March show 2,970 cases in Michigan. It's possible BSA gave the state one batch of names from claims in January, when claims normalization was a little over halfway done, and another more recently, perhaps even after giving the TCC the data that they released in March.
- Of that 84,000, at least 10% were blank/unknown. A proportional number of those 1,700 would be 170 additional claims, not the entire difference, but a reasonable number for the AG to guess at when discussing the case without further analysis.
- The TCC's table is based on one state per claim, but some claims could actually implicate more than one state... maybe a Scout lived and was registered in Michigan, but was abused while at a high-adventure activity in New York, or vice versa.
Unregistered Leaders
in Open Discussion - Program
Posted
In prior years (five-ish years ago, give or take), my council required Cub Scout Day Camp "walkers" (an adult whose job was to walk around with a provisional den, typically the once including their kid, and make sure no one wandered off) to have a certificate of YPT completion, but did not requre them to be registered with any unit. But I haven't looked at the fine print of those policies for the current year yet.
My son's troop already had a policy that any adult wishing to attend more than 72 hours of cumulative camping time had to be registered with the BSA (hence also YPT trained), even before this year's coming changes.