CynicalScouter

24 minutes ago, johnsch322 said:

As a victim I do not feel you wish me well instead you are basically constantly saying no amount of money will make you whole in a way that suggests why bother getting anything when you won’t be happy anyway. 

Exactly the message is clear: Go away don’t ask for compensation don’t seek justice leave the “poor” BSA alone. Emotional damage is so hard to prove or measure let’s just forget about it. Etc.

still waiting for a legal argument as to how or why that flies.

38 minutes ago, skeptic said:

But I do feel that the idea take away the overall positive program and its support to somehow get even is not only selfish, but impossible.

So your legal argument (this is the bankruptcy thread) is if an organization is a non-for profit and does enough good it’s allowed to get way with anything it wants because it has “an overall positive program”?

I don’t care if BSA found the cure for cancer. The fact that it may do some good does not give it a legal exemption to tort laws regarding negligence and child sexual abuse.

32 minutes ago, skeptic said:

So please do not make comments about me not caring.  

When you go out of your way to insist the victims of sexual abuse deserve nothing unless they can prove PHYSICAL harm? When you go out of your way to insist the victims of sexual abuse deserve nothing because EMOTIONAL harm isn't a real thing, or isn't something you can be compensated for? Sorts makes me wonder if you do care.

30 minutes ago, skeptic said:

And, no one has yet explained to me how you put "a value or price" on emotional and psycological damage, since it will vary from personality to personality, and often is made worse by the very law suit that is being placed. 

Emotional distress damages are calculated every day in courts all around the nation. It is not a new concept. The tort of "intentional infliction of emotional distress" goes back at least 7 centuries (I de S et ux v. W de S, Y.B. 22 Edw. III, f. 99, pl. 60 (1348).) and is entirely a question of what EMOTIONAL damage a person suffers, not physical.

In that instance, a drunk swung or threw an ax at the wife of the tavern owner when told the bar was closed. By sheer dumb luck or because he was too drunk to aim, she wasn't killed in fact not one PHYSICAL harm was done her. Yet the court held in favor of emotional damage (payable to the husband because back in 1348 wives could not sue in their own right, but that's another story for another day) for in effect scaring her half to death.

In fact, that's were the concept of ASSAULT came from. BATTERY was actual physical damage. ASSAULT was purely threatening and emotional. Thus when we talk about sexual ASSAULT in the civil or criminal context, you do NOT need to prove PHYSICAL harm.

30 minutes ago, skeptic said:

We come back again as to why insurance policies stipulate amounts for physical damages, wheter property or human.

Some do, but most simply talk about "personal injury" that includes EMOTIONAL. Don't like it? Wind the clock back 750 years. Simply because it is hard to value or quantify emotional damage does NOT mean it is impossible to do so. NOR does it follow that a person sexually abused  has no "damages". Outside of certain forced acts, there is no PHYSICAL damage involved in many sexual abuse cases. But emotional? Absolutely.

57 minutes ago, vol_scouter said:

As many have noted, the BSA and local councils simply do not have the money that Stang and others are demanding.  

Here is the deal with the LCs. They want to avoid their own bankruptcies? Then they need to pay and pay a LOT more than the pittance they are offering.

Stang’s position is to leave LCs with

1) two years operating expenses in savings and cash

2) those camps that are actually being utilized. There are a LOT of camps that remain for nostalgia of a time when councils had 2-10x as many scouts as they do now.

And that is it. If the council doesn’t want the deal, fine. They can then wait for the inevitable lawsuits (every single council has live pending sexual abuse claims inside the statutes of limitations) and we’ll be back here in 6 months or a year to talk about how XYZ Council had to file their own bankruptcy.

When we run the data and find dozens upon dozens of councils offer 10% or LESS of assets, they don’t get to come crying poverty.  When most councils are offering 14.77% of total assets or LESS, they do not get to come crying poverty.

And the victims are well within their rights to say no to any such deal.

So, I want to come back to something people have raised and that is the value and assets of LCs.

There are two main issues. The first is that the properties are undervalued. The second is that what the LCs insist are "restricted" really are not.

The first issue came up in the hearing last week and has been discussed here, namely, that "book value" or real estate appraised value of these properties is absurdly low and that what needs to happen is appraisals.

Only, as Stang was somewhat forced to admit, the vast majority of properties HAVE been appraised.

There were two main entities that did the appraisals

1. CBRE, hired by the TCC
2. JLL, hired by BSA
3. Keen, hired by ???

There are 728 properties held by 250 or so councils (a few councils have no property such as Colonial Virginia, Far East, etc.)

Of these 728

CBRE did appraisals on over 500. JLL on around 350. In some cases, both CBRE and JLL both did appraisals.

I don't really see the argument here that was previously made that somehow the LCs have grossly undervalued the properties. By my count, per the latest filing, only around 10 properties are council-valued.

I just don't see where the TCC is going to be able to prove that the LCs have tons of property valued at another billion dollars is coming from.

Now, the issue of "restricted". I suspect what WILL be the heart of the TCC plan is that these LCs don't need as much money has they are sitting on, they can survive without it, and that some of these "Restricted" properties are not all that "restricted" and therefore subject to immediate sale.

So the councils that are walking away with only giving 10-20% OR LESS in total assets are in for a rude awakening.

8 minutes ago, RememberSchiff said:

Seems problematic for the court, where corporations fade and re-incorporate under the same person but not necessarily at the same location.

XYZ Medical...XYZ Legal...ABC Services...

that’s why you do these broad subpoenas.

12 minutes ago, johnsch322 said:

Dues and fees were bound to go up due to inflation and decreased membership.

The other factor from what I was told is that the LDS was, in effect, subsidizing low fees for years.

12 minutes ago, RememberSchiff said:

Why not subpoena the person common to all?

Because the subpoena is addressed to the corporate entities, not individuals.

Sometimes I've seen subpoenas in state court directed to "Custodian of records, XYZ Corp" or  "Accounting Department, XYZ Corp.", but it will never say "Bob Smith as CEO for XYZ Corp."

28 minutes ago, MattR said:

In the meantime,  let's get back to discussing ideas and not personalities.

Fine, here's an interesting move from Century in the bankruptcy.

https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/9fbfe200-8084-4b1d-a659-6786ae8cffd5_6364.pdf

They are asking to subpoena records from

• Stratos Medical Review, LLC
• Stratos Medical Review (SMR), LP and
• SCR Oldco GP, LLC, formerly known as Stratos Legal GP, LLC

Why interesting? Because the judge, in her order authorizing aggregator depositions and discovery said only  "Stratos Legal"

https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/3b242b2e-f932-4958-b328-48067e1b881a_6184.pdf

All three entities share the same address. I am going to hazard a guess here the insurers are trying to anticipate a dodge by the aggregators: a subpoena that ONLY names " Stratos Legal GP, LLC" or "Stratos Legal" and gets no response because the aggregator will claim THAT particular entity has no records (but the affiliated Stratos Medical Revie, LLC does).

So, blanket paper on everyone and see what happens. If they wanted to play hard knuckle ball here SCR Oldco GP, LLC, formerly known as Stratos Legal GP, LLC would respond and, separately, the other two entities would tell Century the judge's order doesn't extend to THEM.

1 hour ago, UpstateNYCC said:

To this day, the other leader brags about it as a recruiting tactic (he practically guarantees eagle rank to parents).  Anyone on the national level we can take this to?  Any other suggestions on how to handle?

There's two issues:

1) If it happened at the time and you reported it to your council, that's really it. National's not going to intervene, certainly not after the fact.

2) If this is continuing to happen/ongoing, then point that out. They may not go back in time, but if it is STILL happening they'll try to stop if BEFORE it happens again.

51 minutes ago, Sentinel947 said:

He's been largely critical of the BSA and on the side of the CSA victims. His legal analysis is typically accurate. At one point he was Mr. Kosnoffs favorite poster when He was reading our little website. 

Right, and I want to be absolutely clear: I've said before and I'll repeat that I want CSA victims to be compensated as much as the law allows, but that is the key. As much as the law allows.

Please note that I have never, ever objected to or opposed those CSA victims that have said they either a) want BSA destroyed or b) don't care if BSA gets destroyed in the process. I'm not going to judge their emotions and feelings. They have every right to feel that way. I'll never argue against that sentiment.

But what I have asked, and in particular @Muttsy , is what is the legal path they think exists here? To put it back in the bankruptcy context a second, the Kosnoff Magic Plan is that somehow 100% of victims will receive 100% of claim values and the means to achieve this area

• Option 1: The bankruptcy judge is going to by magic waive or eliminate 50,000 statutes of limitations and allow those cases to proceed against insurance companies. What is the legal basis for this? Magic and wishful thinking.
• Option 2: The BSA falls apart or BSA is liquidated. All those 50,000 claims go back to state court and the statutes of limitation go away. Again, that may happen in SOME states for SOME claims, but not for all 50,000 claims. You still wind up with claimants walking away with $0.
• Option 3: The 20-30,000 existing NON-timed-barred claims will convert into actual lawsuits and suddenly result in the insurance companies agreeing to pay out on all 82,500. Not all will. Right now those 20-30,000 claims could turn into lawsuits RIGHT NOW. Instead, only around 1300 have. When I did the math on payouts, I showed that the insurers will simply pay out around $1-2 billion in settlements on those 1300 and that's the end of it.

So, you can have:

• 100% of claimants get SOMETHING. It may be a pittance, but SOMETHING.
• 2-5% of claimants get settlement claims (non-statute of limitation states) and the rest get 0%

But Kosnoff's Magic Plan will convince victims, and has as I see on his twitter feed, that there's a magic way for 100% of victims to receive 100% of claim values. There simply is not.

57 minutes ago, Muttsy said:

If Mr K is so low in your opinion, why would he oppose the Coalition/BSA Plan where he would stand to make tens of millions of dollars?

Because in the end he's not interested in what in monetarily in the best interest of his clients OR himself. He simply wants BSA dead. He is allowing his ideological/vendetta to kill BSA at all costs to override the best-interest-of-clients.

Again, and again, and again, he's playing the Pied Piper to victims: just reject the plan and he can magically get all 50,000 statutes of limitations lifted and billions of dollars. Of course, he's never specified the legal theory behind any of this. He's offered nothing.

The TCC at least is offering a path, or at least the 6-7 specific points of a path (details TBD).

The Coalition/BSA/FCR plan offers a path. Agree, disagree, but it is a path.

This gets back to Kosnoff's Fantasy that all 82,500 victims can go back to state court tomorrow and sue, sue, sue.

As noted, over 50,000 claims are time barred. So no Mr. Kosnoff, you are simply wrong.

So this "let's go back to state court" idea may sound and work great for SOME claimants, but for the vast majority, not so much.

This simply borders on what I've described before as magical or wishful thinking. Kosnoff's never, ever provided a LEGAL argument for why 50,000+ statutes of limitation suddenly disappear overnight.

Kosnoff: Plan 5.0 is "worst most appalling treatment of abuse victims ever." Victims get "less than 5000."

First, I think his point is that given that 5.0 releases LDS and so many others (Hartford, COs after 1976, LCs, and of course BSA) for what amounts to $2 billion that it is "appalling".

Second, the "less than 5000". I am not sure what his math is, but I have a guess.

$787 million from Hartford (but that may ONLY go to those claimants covered by a Hartford policy, not all 82,500)
$250 million from LDS (but that may ONLY go to those claimants abused by LDS leaders/in LDS units)
$600 million from LCs (but that may be broken down by LC?)
$250 million from BSA (but that includes $90 million in cash that BSA says may be gone by 1Q 2021)

For a total of $1.887 billion divided (perhaps) across 82,500 claims = $22,872

So, I am trying to figure out where he is getting "less than 5000"

82500*5000 = $412.5 million

LC ($600 M) + BSA ($250 M)/82500 = 850,000,000/82500 = $10303 - 40% attorneys fees (this is a guess) still gets above $5000 ($6181)

BSA alone = $250 million /82500 = $3030.

So, it looks like Kosnoff's "most victims get...less than 5000" refers to the BSA contribution.

There's a second possibility and that is he's acknowledging the reality that the settlement trustee in in fact going to take into consideration statutes of limitations and therefore NOT pay out 100% on claims from states where such statutes of limitation exist.

Also, as I've pointed out before: even total liquidation of BSA doesn't get victims that much more.

Let's pretend a second that BSA liquidates and (through some magic) has NO liabilities other than paying out to the victims. Again, that is PURE fantasy as there are other claimants and creditors out there, but let's just use Kosnoff Magic (tm).

All $1 billion (or so) of BSA National assets are instantly made available to all victims (again, notwithstanding statutes of limitations, whether the claim is valid, etc.)

$1 billion/82500 = $12,121.

11 minutes ago, vol_scouter said:

If this is an issue, why was it not discussed long before now?

Two reasons:

Plan 5.0 is barely a week old.

She has hoped mediation would settle these issues. She said several times in several ways the best solution is a global settlement. But as one attorney put it and she reiterated: sometimes you just have to litigate this out. She said herself: we knew for months there were these issues.  Hope of a mediated solution is out. So now she has to start issuing rulings. I suspect there will be a ton Tuesday

2 hours ago, Eagle1993 said:

There are so many issues that could substantially change the final plan that I question why they are proceeding with the vote first.

One theory and I just wanna offer this out is that you don’t adjudicate or litigate what doesn’t need to be adjudicated or litigated.

everything you described is true it could impact the final plan.

But if the plan is overwhelmingly rejected we don’t have to worry about it.

if the plan is such that it’s clearly accepted overwhelmingly then we can worry about the edge cases like maybe one or two councils here or there who may not be included.

but I guess the argument is is you get the plan out the door and voted on and then decide how you want to slice the data. Do you want to categorized by local council? By CO? By time barred versus non-time-barred?

in other words from a methodological standpoint collecting the data first as long as you have an understanding of what it is you’re asking “do you approve the plan yes or no?” Then allows you to do what might be called cross tabs.

Once you get the data you can start interpreting it.

The other factor isn’t as much about statistics as much as it is about legal which I’m kind of surprised by but I believe the judge is going to bring up on Tuesday. Put putting aside how many angels dance on the head of a pin is this plan even confirmable? if 99.9% of people vote in favor of it does it still violate due process of victims or chartered organizations or insurance companies?

that’s why I think it’s important that the judge said the first order of business on Tuesday is going to be hearing legal arguments about whether or not this plan should even go out the door

18 minutes ago, Eagle1993 said:

Will we get to see Mosby & Kosnoff Tuesday?

Yesterday the judge indicated that Century's objections will get pushed to confirmation BUT that as for Kosnoff and the other attorneys, Century will be attempting to depose them. So while we do not get a Mosby and Kosnoff witness testimony, I suspect we will see Century attempt to put them into depositions.

18 minutes ago, vol_scouter said:

My council’s participation is dependent upon being fully released from liability retrospectively.   If the council can be sued anyway, why pay into a trust?   Most if not all councils will have the same requirement and their executive boards will not approve a deal where the councils are not fully released from liability.  The council would need the money to defend itself from non-time barred claims.  The TCC request is nonsensical unless it is just a ploy to make it all fall apart.

I don't think it is a ploy, I think it gets at a particular issue: BSA isn't looking to just get out of liability, it is looking to get LCs and COs out as well. BSA is a national entity operating across the nation. Therefore, it makes sense to have all victims vote on whether to approve/reject the BSA plan as it relates to BSA.

BUT let's take St. Louis Area Council (just to pick on them some more) for a second. They have 921 claims against then alone (plus some claims shared with other councils). Let's say the following took place.

50,000 claimants nationwide vote for Plan 5.0 and the vote is OVERWHELMING to approve the plan: 43,000 to 7,000 (86% yes).

BUT looking at 921 St. Louis Area Council claimants, it is the opposite: 121 in favor, 800 opposed, an 86% no vote.

While the argument could be made that sure, it is OK to have the 921 claims against BSA discharged this way, what is the legal basis for claiming that somehow that should translate into the discharge against St. Louis Area Council, especially where there is such an overwhelming vote against?

If St. Louis Area Council wants that kind of discharge, it should be in its own Chapter 11.

Official agenda for September 28

https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/2937f369-53f7-4514-a6f6-b9cee21556ac_6358.pdf

1. Debtors’ Motion for Entry of an Order (I) Approving the Disclosure Statement and the
Form and Manner of Notice, (II) Approving Plan Solicitation and Voting Procedures, (III)
Approving Forms of Ballots, (IV) Approving Form, Manner, and Scope of Confirmation
Notices, (V) Establishing Certain Deadlines in Connection with Approval of the Disclosure
Statement and Confirmation of the Plan, and (VI) Granting Related Relief (D.I. 2295, filed
3/2/21).

2. Debtors’ Motion For Entry of Order (I) Scheduling Certain Dates and Deadlines in
Connection with Confirmation of the Debtors Plan of Reorganization, (II) Establishing
Certain Protocols, and (III) Granting Related Relief (D.I. 2618, filed 4/15/21).

1 hour ago, Eagle1970 said:

That happens to be my council, and nobody has asked for my vote.

As I heard it, the way it would/could work is this.

You vote your vote and either a) identify your council or b) your council is identified by your scouting history/claim

The vote is then looked at in two ways:

1) Your vote is one out a national voting system to allow for BSA to be discharged.

2) Your vote is one out a local subset for the LC.

So, for example, if you vote "no" to Plan 5.0.

1) You vote no, but are outvoted as to BSA by the rest of the nation. BSA is discharged out of bankruptcy.

2) You vote no, and a majority (or large minority, not clear) of those with claims against St. Louis Area Council reject the plan. THAT council is NOT discharged.

How on earth that would work (since Plan 5.0 is entirely based on LCs contributing) is beyond me.

10 minutes ago, 1980Scouter said:

What if this was years before the lawsuit and the LC's seeing that many of them have tens of millions in cash, decided to update and repair all scout camps in use?

How great would that have been? There is no scout camp out there that could not use a few million dollars or more to get the camp in top condition. 

Then a well maintained camp would draw more use and make it more sustainable.

Here are some cold, hard, non-bankruptcy facts about the camps.

1. BSA membership has been in decline for 30 years and freefall for the last 10.
2. The entire LC camp system was developed at and in a time when BSA had literally MILLIONS more scouts that it did prior to 2019. Then LDS left. Then the bankruptcy. Then COVID.
3. The LCs didn't need to dump millions into making ALL camps in use pretty. They needed to come to face the reality: sell some and use the proceeds to refurbish the rest.
4. Much of the cash being spent now is endowment funds. NO ONE likes to spend down an endowment; the idea is to live off the interest in generates.

Let's game this out knowing the following:

1) The absolute fastest the solicitation and disclosure can be finalized is next Tuesday.

2) The judge has said she wants 60 days of solicitation.

And assuming

3) Somehow the BSA gets its way for 4-day-turn-around-for-discovery (this is sheer madness, but let's map that out).

Disclosure Statement Hearing = September 28

Deadline to Mail Solicitation Packages and Related Notices 8 days later = October 6

60 days to vote = December 6 (December 5, but that is a Sunday)
Preliminary Voting Report Deadline 5 days later = December 11
Plan Objection Deadline = December 12
Final Voting Report Deadline = December 15
Confirmation Brief/Reply Deadline = December 20
Confirmation Hearing = December 31 (I think December 29 was mentioned in the hearing today)

In other words, sheer insanity.

I am not the only one who noticed the missed deadline.

https://www.facebook.com/MethodistScouting/posts/603906087681889?comment_id=604431790962652&reply_comment_id=620198382719326

People are posting on the Methodist Scouting page: where is that September 20 update?

"I have no reason at all to believe that what [BSA's attorneys] said was inaccurate [running out of cash]. No reason to believe that."

So she does believe the BSA is going to run out of cash in 1Q 2022.

Is she going to slam the accelerator now? Took her long enough.