CynicalScouter

Chapter 7 won't happen. The judge has made it pretty clear that's not in the cards. If BSA wanted out of bankruptcy tomorrow, it could happen. Let me repeat that: if BSA wanted out of bankruptcy tomorrow, it could happen. Even Stang earlier on admitted that. The main reason for this entire knock down drag out fight is that BSA wants the LCs and COs covered, too. If the only issue was BSA leaving (what was called the "toggle plan") I fervently believe they could be out of bankruptcy by December 2021 (optimistic) or March 2022. It would, of course, leave the LCs and COs absolutely up a creek without paddles. If it gets to the point of BSA being completely out of cash and resources, I would expect at that point BSA to submit a BSA/LC or BSA/LC/CO plan to the claimants with the proviso that, should that be rejected, BSA will ask the court for a cramdown anyway for BSA only and that absent that, BSA will request Chapter 7. This was already pretty much BSA plan 3.0, except no veiled threat of a Chapter 7. If it got the 2/3rds needed, done. BSA's out of bankruptcy along with the LCs and COs. If it failed to get the 2/3rds needed, rather than watching as BSA dies, the judge would order a cramdown. BSA comes out of bankruptcy, and 1/4 to 1/3 of councils will be in bankruptcy the next day. Yes, I know, that's never happened in an abuse bankruptcy case before. You know what also never happened? 82,500 claims and the possibility of an institution like BSA being pushed out of existence. Given a choice between the two (a dead BSA vs. a cramdown), I suspect the judge would order the cramdown. This is my wild speculation. Take with copious grains of salt.

This is why the court made the point of noting that any fraud (I mean REAL fraud, not "I forgot to dot an i and cross a t" things that the insurers want to lump in) may have to be dealt with now, for the following reason. 1) Fraud on the part OF THE PROCESSING. Let me get real technical here. Normally, when a proof of claim is filed, the claimant signs it. Now, their attorney may do so BUT (and here's the but) BUT the attorney has to examine the proof of claim to determine it meets the bare minimum of validity (prima facie). Accusation #1 is that the lawyers were just mass-signing these things as fast as their hands could move or their e-signatures get applied. Therefore, the accusations in the CLAIM may or may not be true (don't know at this point, doesn't matter at this point), but the PROCESSING of the claim was fraudulent. This was a MAJOR, MAJOR issue. The judge was VERY concerned about lawyer signing proofs of claim without doing proper vetting. And in fact, the ORIGINAL plan provided that ONLY claimants could sign https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/820848_695.pdf She was later convinced to allow attorneys to sign on behalf of Sexual Abuse Survivors, but she warned she was worried about this. And it does look like there were mass signings going on. https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/870498_1972.pdf Declaration of Stewart https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/874677_2232.pdf Declaration of Speckin (First Declaration) https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/870566_1975.pdf That doesn't mean the CLAIM is invalid; it may contain perfectly valid info and a perfectly valid claim, but the PROCESS was fraudulent/invalid. 2) Fraud on the part OF THE CLAIM ITSELF. This takes on two parts. A) The Claimant is lying or B) The aggregators manipulated the claims. Back to Declaration of Speckin (First Declaration) https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/870566_1975.pdf Speckin (First Declaration) also goes into infinite, gory detail about all 4 aggregators. NOT just that the process was bad, but that the documents themselves and their contents were manipulated. I'm not positing it all, just read. And the hits kept coming Speckin (Second Declaration) finds even more outright, no joke manipulation and suggests that Kosnoff was a VICTIM of this. https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/874559_2211.pdf In other words, either a) Kosnoff (improperly) allowed people all around the world AT THE EXACT SAME TIME to improperly affix his signature on these documents (which he has gone on record denying) OR b) Someone without Kosnoff's knowledge and consent went ahead and did it anyway c) The use of a teleporter And it wans't just Kosnoff, other AIS lawyers were either having their names misused, with or without their consent. Again, Fraud Claim #1 is that a lawyer himself/herself was mass signing this. Fraud Claim #2 was that those aggregators were using OTHER lawyers signatures, with or without their consent.

TBD. If I had to guess it was because they wanted to hide the fact they were mass cranking these with only a few lawyers.

We don't know WHAT would happen. Per US law/the Congressional Charter the IP belongs to BSA. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/36/30905 We have never, ever, had a Congressionally Chartered org go into Chapter 7. The question came up early: can a BANKRUPTCY judge set aside federal law and declare certain provisions like that void? The answer is probably no, she cannot; it would have to go into U.S. District Court.

You would have to go through claim by claim by claim. First, keep in mind AIS did NOT use aggregators (so they claim) and Kosnoff insists it was the Coalition and not AIS that is to blame. Moreover, Kosnoff is claiming his signature (e-signature) was applied to many of these claims. So far, the evidence presented shows that to be the case. In other words, the only “tie to it” may be that the Coalition and their lawyers used the AIS lawyers signatures improperly and NOT that AIS and Kosnoff were the ones acting improperly. Second, keep in mind that fraud/invalid distinction. Some claims may be invalid but not fraudulent. The example I used before is the victim who was sexually abused by two scout leaders and therefore filed two claims. The insurance companies want BOTH claims declared “fraudulent”. No, what should be allowed to happen is a) Claim #1 is declare an invalid duplicate and b) Claim #2 amended to include the information from Claim #1. Third, their definition of "fraudulent" also includes claims with incomplete data. For example, and this was common, the victim filling out the form would put in their narrative description (I was abused in Waco, TX) BUT in the form for the blank for "State" then left it blank. Ah ha! The insurers claimed Fraud! Fake claim! No, it was an error. Similar to the now legendary 1909 claim. Of course BSA didn't exist in 1909. One of the claims was supposedly from 1909. It was a fat-fingered data entry error. Ah ha the insurers claimed. Fraud! Again, no. Third, it will depend on how prevalent. Again, the insurers wanted an "omnibus" rejection of ALL CLAIMS if they could find so much as ONE fraudulent claim or all claims with a similar characteristic. As the judge noted, that just isn't something that exists. https://cases.omniagentsolutions.com/documents?clientId=CsgAAncz%2b6Yclmvv9%2fq5CGybTGevZSjdVimQq9zQutqmTPHesk4PZDyfOOLxIiIwZjXomPlMZCo%3d%3e).&tagId=1153&noFrom=1972 Again, look at the example above. The claim failed to put in the state BUT wrote in the space "Describe your abuse" that "I was abused in Waco, TX". They wanted ALL such claims immediately declared "Fraudulent". Etc. So let me very, very clear here. There is a light-year of difference between a) an accident on the part of a claimant on their proof of claim (e.g filing two claims involving two scout leaders when it should have been one claim naming both leaders) or other de minimum mistakes and errors and b) people outright lying and deliberately filing knowingly inaccurate information. The insurers want to use evidence of a) and b) to imply that ALL errors/mistakes (a) are "fraudulent" (b).

Ok, blood less boiling, I want to address this in particular and YPT in general. Yes, YPT is burdensome and in some edge-cases overly burdensome, some dare say unrealistic. But YPT did not come out of thin air. One-on-one with adults was not just magically created. It's part and parcel of child sexual abuse. And yes, declaring someone an adult at age 18 is problematic. But it is a clear, bright line that at least has a legal basis (a person is per se an adult at 18 in all states). Asking unit leaders to parse out whether the 17 year old talking to the 18 year old as a friend, as an ASM, in the context of Scouting, etc. would be impossible. Asking scouts to provide a "list of all 18 year olds" and saying it is OK to talk to THOSE 18 year olds but no THOSE OTHER 18 year olds is AND THEN asking ASMs to keep track of that list is just asking for trouble. Bright lines can be arbitrary, but the alternative is to ask unit leaders to make constant judgement calls ("Is that 18 year old ASM on the "OK to talk to" list?). Asking leaders to self-police themselves didn't turn out so well, to the tune of thousands of sexual abuse claims. The in-scouting/out-of-scouting issue. I hope everyone took YPT recently. Note that one of the victims discussed how a scout leader became a "family friend" and as a "family friend" abused him. There are other instances reported in the bankruptcy case of the SM/ASM who convinced the scout to come to his house OUTSIDE THE CONTEXT OF SCOUTING just to hang out and watch TV. Well, the argument goes, when I invited John Doe over it wasn't ASM to Scout, it was family friend/mentor to young man in need. And guess what? BSA's getting sued for it now. That is the pernicious part of this sexual abuse. When does that abusive ASM stop being the "ASM" and become the "family friend" that abuses the scout? Again, watch the YPT video and listen to the words. BSA opted to lay out a rule that covered ALL occurrences at ALL times because again, the alternative would leave too much to interpretation of the unit leaders or parents/adults and expose BSA to too much liability. "But no other groups do this," You're darn right. And no other groups are looking at this level of sexual abuse claims and cases. Why doesn't Little League or the GSUSA have this level of restrictions? Because they don't have a 100+ year PUBLIC, LITIGATED track record of thousands of claims of sexual abuse. Maybe if they did, they'd have something akin to what BSA adopted as YPT. It is MUCH more likely that in the next decade those other organizations will start to look more like BSA's YPT than the reverse (BSA loosen its YPT rules and goes back to where it was in the 1970s). I know the Catholic Church's lesson was to embrace their version of YPT (in my area it is called Virtus, there's other very similar programs in other dioceses). Not only is YPT not going away anytime soon/reverting back to the "good old days", it will likely get more restrictive. Keep in mind that in the context of the bankruptcy the TCC/FCR/Coalition managed to get the BSA to agree to an outside, independent review of the entire YPT system and that that reviewer's recommendations would be made and reports issued. I find it extremely unlikely that reviewer is going to not find anything to change. It may be somewhat simple (YPT is valid only for 1 year not 2, which some councils have already moved towards) or it may crank up the restrictions on adult-to-youth contact even more. But no one should think for a second that the "good old days" of the 1970s are coming back. And with thousands of sexually abused scouts, they shouldn't come back anyway. Obedience and "games": I saw YPT referred to as a "game" to be played. It isn't. And while you may not like the rules, as a scouter you are suppose to obey them. It's part of the agreement you signed with your adult application. No one is forcing anyone here at gunpoint to remain in scouting. If YPT is too much of a burden for you, by all means, leave. But while I find most disturbing than anything is the notion that Scout Leaders should "Don't ask, don't tell" when they see a YP violation. That's PRECISELY THE OPPOSITE, verbatim, of what we are trained to do in YP. The idea that people on this forums believe looking the other way ("Don't ask, don't tell") when a YP violation happens just sickens me. I don't care if it is minor or major in your opinion. You address it or get the heck out of scouting. Aside from that there is the rank hypocrisy: sure you can tell scouts to be Obedient, you can mouth the Oath and Law, but when YP gets in the way of what it is you want to do you just want to ignore it? Don't ask, don't tell? Unacceptable. You want to advocate for changing the rule? Fine, knock yourselves out. But I hope and pray I never, ever, EVER see another person refer to YP as a "game" or actively (or passively/implicitly) encourage leaders to ignore YP.

But, conversely, what about a pan when half a group AGREES? 50%+1? The other factor as the judge noted in her ruling from the bench yesterday is she will want to figure out how those mass aggregate claims COULD impact voting.

This is an excellent, broad, overview of everything so far in the bankruptcy/legal case so far. Thanks!

Wow. This is hyperbole on top of hyperbole. It is also far outside the scope of Chapter 11 topic. I'd suggest this be taken elsewhere.

Deleted. Discussions of internal Council/National politics and the removal of Scouters is NOT part of the Chapter 11 legal proceedings. Take complaints to another thread.

Deleted. Discussions of internal Council/National politics and the removal of Scouters is NOT part of the Chapter 11 legal proceedings. Take complaints to another thread.

Deleted. Discussions of internal Council/National politics and the removal of Scouters is NOT part of the Chapter 11 legal proceedings. Take complaints to another thread.

I would differentiate here. The UMC's official national institution issued their very public opinion for all Methodist Churches. However, the Catholic Church does not have a directly comparable entity. The closest thing, and it's not directly comparable, is the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. As of this date, they have been publicly silent. Moreover, at the bishopric level, the Methodists and Catholics have also reacted differently. SO FAR the Methodist bishops have urged, encouraged, recommended, strongly recommended, etc. no rechartering past December 31, 2021 but to my knowledge no "orders" have gone out. Several Catholic bishops/archbishops however have been much more blunt and simply ordered parishes to stop chartering NOW or in the recent past. For example in Fall 2020 the Diocese of Dallas in effect gave all parishes 90 days to get the scouts out. Other dioceses have given similar directives: scouting is out or move to facilities use by December 31, 2021. Where the Methodist bishops suggested, some Catholic bishops are simply ordering.

Exactly. There's no such thing as "This bankruptcy only good for claims in the following states". It is ALL claims and debts owed as of the bar claim date (and some incurred during the pendency of the bankruptcy such as general operating expenses) nationwide. I agree that this makes the situation involving the legal status of SoLs problematic. A person in State X for example, may have no claim TODAY against BSA due to the SoL but by next August WILL under a new state law that lifts the SoL in State X. From a purely legal standpoint, that is what makes this even more of a challenge as I believe the US Trustee pointed out. Now, the BSA 3.0 plan and RSA/BSA Plan 4.0 handled this issue in very, very different ways. BSA Plan 3.0 said that if in the future a SoL was lifted, that the victim/claimant could come back to the Settlement Trustee and try to get more money. https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/75cad6f2-cc34-4b0c-896f-0d26815b1189_5368.pdf But that became a problem: what happens if the SoL window reopens 10 years from now and the Settlement has 100% paid out? RSA/BSA Plan 4.0 offered an alternative: you have 12 months to get your legislature to pass a SoL window reopen. It was called Claim Determination Deferral https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/7082572a-2eeb-4a35-bc9b-e515925846fd_5486.pdf So, to make it easy, if the effective date of the BSA Bankruptcy discharge is September 1, 2021, you have until August 31, 2022 to file for a claim deferral. If at any time between September 1, 2021 and August 31, 2022 your state legislature enacts a SoL look back window, your claim would shift from Closed or Gray 1/2/3 to Open.

Yes, but they were redacted pursuant to the courts various confidentiality orders. See page 78 https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/870498_1972.pdf I am going to be as careful, oh so careful, as I can be here about "No Impact Alleged" and "No Physical Abuse" and I am hesitant to even go this far but I think it is a legit question worth answering. No Impact Alleged/No Physical Abuse COULD mean one of a few things. As a point of reference, this was the Sexual Abuse Proof of Claim form. See in particular PART 5: IMPACT OF SEXUAL ABUSE https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/CMSVol2/pub_47373/849007_SA_POC_4.pdf 1) Part 5 (impact) was left blank and claimants failed to fill it out because it was too traumatizing. 2) Part 5 (impact) was left blank and claimants failed to fill it out because the victim determined for himself it had no impact among those listed and opted not to complete the "Other" section. 3) The victim determined for himself it had no impact at all or was not physical. Keep in mind that some of the listed types of sexual abuse include not-invasive, non-physical acts and that are lumped as "Sexual Abuse-No Touching" and that would only be paid out anywhere from $3500-$8500 (BSA Plan 4.0/RSA). I do NOT want to get into graphic descriptions of what that does/does NOT include. Let's leave it at that.

Here's the article but it is paywalled after about 100 words. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-boy-scouts-bankruptcy-case-what-to-know-11630062000

BSA's latest financials are in. https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/24d538eb-17d5-4da0-8e59-11c0f2069ab2_6135.pdf BSA posting a loss of 6,851,000 So far throughout the 17 months of the bankruptcy, there's a cumulative loss of $99,620,000

Something hinted at The judge quoted the statistician Martin that Martin testified she COULD get sample with a margin of error of 4-7%. If your population (of claims) = 82,500, selecting 1,400 leads to a margin of error of 3% at the 95% Confidence level. If your population (of claims) = 82,500, selecting 1,400 leads to a margin of error of 4% at the 99% Confidence level. So, assuming random sampling and all other standard sampling caveats apply, 1,400 could get to that 4-7% alluded to.

I looked at the media coverage I don’t get that impression at all if you look at the way they phrased it they say “attorneys representing 70,000” they don’t say “attorneys in control of 70,000” can you provide an example of media reporting that the attorneys control the votes?

That is not what Kosnoff’s Rule 2029 says. It says HIS firm does.

But even if the coalition does in fact sell out they don’t control the votes it’s still possible to have a situation whereby Based on coalition lawyer advocacy you get a 51% majority or even a 60% majority but still failed to get the 2/3. that would be an absolute horror show and I mentioned it back in May. 67% is the threshold what happens if it comes in at 65% does the judge order a cram down and just skip the 2%? what if it were 60% or 55%?

Here's my problem with the article, and it is a major one. In three different places the article says that support from "a majority" is required. It's more than that. It's 2/3rds. And that is what makes this calculus so much harder. Again, all other things being equal, that means a MINORITY (27,500 out of 82,500) can scuttle this plan absent a cramdown which is just a horror show in its own right.

A scout is obedient. So too should be scouters. I couldn’t imagine being a hypocrite to say that I expect my scouts to follow the rules but I refuse to follow them and I’m gonna play games of “don’t ask don’t tell” involving adults making one on one contact with children in direct violation of YPT.

The rule pertaining to no one on one contact between scouts and adults is a youth protection standard. YPT is not a “game”. And adult scout leaders keeping secrets is exactly how we got into 82,500 sexual abuse claims

Depends. Here's the problem; it is NOT clear who represent about 15,103 claimants. Kosnoff claims he does. https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/f26f9981-f41d-42bd-adbd-d7996d12f44f_5924.pdf So Kosnoff's claiming to represent 15,103. BUT read the AIS Rule 2019 https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/47fa66fb-180b-411f-80c4-59e56cd1d63d_5923.pdf In other words: 1) Kosnoff is claiming those 15,103 are his clients. 2) The AIS filing is claiming those 15,103 are clients held jointly by the three firms (Kosnoff Law, PLLC; AVA Law Group, Inc. and Eisenberg, Rothweiler, Winkler, Eisenberg & Jeck, P.C.)