CynicalScouter

Final report out: Tuesday, 10 am "Parties should use the time well" to turn over documents (I believe she means the voluminous edits that will have to take place for disclosure and solicitation documents)

Judge: "I am really worried about what is going to be in front of me and what parties are going to ask me to decide." She sees where this is going. We all see where this is going. Mid-2022 and a LOT of appeals. At best.

Coming back in Tuesday and into Wednesday. Judge is NOT setting a confirmation or other scheduling dates. Tuesday will start with arguments "Convince me that I should not send this plan out at all." Then scheduling if she decides to let it go out.

Judge: I do NOT have 3 days in January. I cannot give BSA 3 days in January today. BSA's "we are running out of cash" cries. "Debtors, I cannot give you what you want." Say goodbye to the Methodists. This takes it past December 31. That makes it official. And BSA claimed it was out of cash so many times I don't think she buys it anymore.

Judge thinking out loud about the scheduling and time table. Third party releases. Confirmation. Discovery. Lots and lots and lots of discovery. Lauria wants to come back Tuesday. But Friday is on the table, too. The key is to decide the confirmation hearing date now and work the schedule backwards. BSA Lawyer: "The debtors are burning cash" Judge: "And there are more people who want debtor to pay for them"

December 9 is "off the table", so confirmation hearing date needs to be reset. BSA's claiming that the longer it goes past December 31, the less cash it will have. If I heard it right, they are claiming if they are not out by March (could have been May), the amount of cash they can contribute to the settlement reaches $0.

Discussion about the BSA timetable. I laid it out here https://www.scouter.com/topic/32791-chapter-11-announced-part-6-plan-50tcc-plan-tbd/page/17/?tab=comments#comment-532716 60 days to solicit ballot, the judge wants it. BSA wanted like 45. With that, all the deadlines get pushed back. Now Tanc and others want extended discovery deadlines. Now we are talking 2022 if I understand this right. NOW BSA is claiming they are out of cash in 1Q 2022. We've heard this before.

Right. Silence = silence. Not a yes. Not a no. Simply silence. UNLESS (and this is the unless) UNLESS there is a specific signed document that allows the attorney to vote for the client.

Yep.

Judge is going to insist on lawyers attach to the master ballot somehow a document showing how it gained the AFFIRMATIVE consent of the client.

The Coalition may also try a "negative notice": if the client says NOTHING, the Coalition lawyer will assume the client would vote "yes" and will vote "yes" for them. That's the Coalition's endgame here? THAT is how they think they'll get the votes? They will simply mail clients notice "If you do NOT specifically tell us no, we are going to vote yes for the plan for you." WOW.

At issue: will the Coalition be forced to turn over all the power of attorneys that show that the Coalition lawyers are in fact allowed to a) vote on behalf of their client and/or b) collect the ballots that are voted by the clients. So there are two issues: Can the lawyer vote FOR their client? ("Voters") Can the lawyer COLLECT the client's filled in ballot and mail it in? ("Transmitters") And let's get written proof of the above, signed by the clients. You can have a power of attorney that covers BOTH, or ONE, but many of these I bet cover NONE. That means the

Yep. A research methodologist ("Collect data first, THEN decide the parameters.") would be screaming right now.

Another item the judge is saying: even if these are forged, that does NOT allow them to be disallowed. The claimants would get a chance to amend. What happens to the claimant who has a valid claim but their lawyer did the forging? The issue of voting, disenfranchising claimants because their lawyers forged? No. She is now going to allow Century to (try) to depose the Coalition lawyers and others. If they object, they can ask the court for a protective order.

The judge is going to delay the issue of forged signatures until confirmation. "We don't know". IF the forged claims influence or impact the vote, then we can go look at them. And parties can get discovery about this now including certification of Coalition lawyers, so be it. But for right now, let's wait to see what the vote comes in at.

Coalition trying to have the Speklin and other evidence showing forgery/aggregators as "not relevant": many of the signatures of lawyers are now claimant signatures. He also is NOT opposing Kosnoff. Also the evidence is "Stale" and "Dated".

Tanc making the case for no master ballot: send 82,500 ballots to 82,500 people individually. Bypass the Coalition lawyers. OR provide specific proof that the claimants gave up the right to vote their ballots to their lawyers. The lawyer retention agreements do NOT authorize the lawyers to vote the claims, or at least the ones seen don't.

Kosnoff's name has now been mentioned at least half a dozen times.

Tanc dropped the F-word: forged as in forged signatures by the Coalition/aggregators

Tanc pointing out the same issue: having the $3500/limited payout folks hold the overwhelming number of votes and having them swamp/overwhelm all the other victims could be a manipulation of the vote. He's quoting case law. This gets to their objection: that BSA's offering $3500 to get the votes for their plan as a bribe, or effectively a bribe. He's trashing the Coalition.

Patterson wants anyone who opts for the $3500 to be separated out and have their votes considered separately. Waiting until confirmation.

Here comes the Century objections with witnesses about the aggregators. Oh boy.

Interesting point: mailing the packages to homes where the victim has NOT told their families about the abuse may be a problem.

ALL Chartered Organizations, all 41,000 will get notice and information about this

"The United Methodist Church — which says up to 5,000 of its U.S. congregations could be affected by future lawsuits — recently advised those churches not to extend their charters with the BSA beyond the end of this year. The UMC said these congregations were "disappointed and very concerned" that they weren't included in the July deal. Everett Cygal, a lawyer for Catholic churches monitoring the case, said it is unfair that parishes now face liability "solely as a result of misconduct by Boy Scout troop leaders who frequently had no connection to the parish." "Scouting can only be d