CynicalScouter

Ok, but do you really believe that the court is somehow going to order the insurance companies to pay out of claims that are not enforceable in their respective states? There's literally no way that happens. The insurance companies will appeal and win arguing that the bankruptcy court cannot simply force insurance to pay for things that are not both VALID and TIMELY (as in not time-barred) legal claims. The only way it happens is if your state(s) lift the SOLs. Many have or are. But that's months if not years down the road (most state legislatures are now out of session and won't come back until next January 2022)

That's an interesting question. If you opt-into the settlement then it is clear that in the event of a future SOL lookback you'd need to get permission of the Settlement Trustee to reopen the claim. But if you opt-out, can you still come back around? The U.S. Trustee's position is that this whole mess is just that: a mess where third parties (LCs and COs) are getting waived out of future claims based on some twisted legal reasoning.

The only way that would work is if 1) You convinced the insurance companies to pay out claims they have no legal obligation to do so (due to time barred status) 2) You somehow were able to get the court to divert some of the proceeds from abuse victims in non-time-barred states to abuse victims in time-barred states. And there's no chance of that happening either.

On a time-barred claim? There was never any chance of that happening other than at the levels we are talking about (1, 2, 3% of claim value). Why would an insurance company pay out for a claim that it had no legal obligation to do so? They aren't charities.

As of right now most victims don't know this yet. And when they do, I suspect many of the lawyers involved will simply direct the client's anger at BSA and/or the judge ("We tried, but BSA and the judge did this.")

So what exactly is it you wanted from BSA itself? It only has $1.4 billion in total assets (or had). If BSA somehow completely liquidated itself and paid out to all 82,500 claimants (regardless of time-barred or not) that was only going to result in payments around $16900.

Yes, but they also said consistent with maintaining scouting. There was never a scenario where BSA was going to be able to come up with billions of dollars here because it did not have billions of dollars to offer in the first place. As for the time-barred, that is going to be a fight for the insurance companies. BSA has no control over them. If the insurance company doesn't want to pay out on a claim that is time-barred, BSA can't force or order the insurance company to do so.

One thing I want to point out is that with this and the $1,500 "nuisance" payouts. BSA is offering all 82,500 claimants a choice as part of the reorg "Expedited Distribution": Take $1,500 no questions asked to settle your claim. Go through the Settlement Trustee process where, for those 58,000+ people in non lookback states you are going to see only 1% of your claim approved.

Suggesting either Poor recording keeping by councils over the years/decades/century A lot of false claims Some combination of #1 and #2

And that leads us to A failed bankruptcy where BSA exits bankruptcy only to be sued thousands of times OR A cramdown by the judge BSA remains in bankruptcy, the exclusivity period ends, and the TCC/FCR come up with their own reorg plan Frankly, there never was from BSA at least and even the LCs. I come back to the math I did 6+ months ago. Total BSA assets was $1.4 billion total WITHOUT taking into consideration any other liabilities or claims Total LC assets were around $4 billion total WITHOUT taking into consideration any other liabilities or claims That meant that even in some magical math world where you could liquidate everything and not have to pay any other creditor, that was $5.4 billion divided out over 82,500 claimants or roughly $65,000 per claim (before insurance). And even if you just limited it to those 24,308 with valid, timely claims that were not time-barred $5.4 billion / 24,308 = $222,000. There was never a scenario here where BSA and the LCs were going to be able to put up "real money".

58,150 BSA conducted a Unique and Timely Abuse Claim Count (82,458) and then listed only those "Not-Barred, Unique & Timely Abuse Claims" (24,308) 82,458-24,308 = 58,150 See page 340 https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/213bd53f-b44f-45c9-97fc-246bcb7ca06b_4108.pdf Under the terms of the BSA reorg plan, those 58,150 claims will be reviewed by the Settlement Trustee and a claim amount assessed and that amount will then be reduced to 1%. So, a $750,000 claim will become $7,500.

Yes, an RSA (used to be called a "lock up agreement") are "contractual agreements among creditors, and sometimes the debtor, to support restructuring plans that have certain agreed-upon characteristics." In absurdly oversimplifed version: Creditors (TCC/Coalition/FCR or some combination) agree to support the BSA coming out of bankruptcy IF AND ONLY IF the bankruptcy plan contains the following provisions generally [LIST OF PROVISIONS] and DOES NOT contain [LIST OF PROVISIONS] Debtors and protected parties (BSA, LCs, COs, or some combo) agree to the creditors terms IF AND ONLY IF [LIST OF PROVISIONS] is included and DOES NOT contain [LIST OF PROVISIONS]. If any of the above IF AND ONLY IF conditions are changed, then the whole agreement is scrapped subject to possible re-negotiation. This is an OK primer on the subject https://www.lawyer-monthly.com/2021/02/using-support-agreements-to-streamline-chapter-11-reorganisations/ Here's another good review/primer. RSAs used to be called "lock up agreements" however that term is disfavored as being too negative. https://www.jonesday.com/en/insights/2013/05/delaware-bankruptcy-court-confirms-the-validity-of-plan-support-agreements

TCC is having a Zoom Town Hall tonight (July 1). I still don't see the BSA RSA document yet on Omni. https://www.pszjlaw.com/assets/htmldocuments/BSA Town Hall Notice 7-1-21.pdf PLEASE TAKE FURTHER NOTICE that the Tort Claimants’ Committee will hold a virtual town hall meeting on July 1, 2021 at 8:00 p.m.(Eastern Time); Zoom link: https://pszjlaw.zoom.us/j/82139795053 (no registration required) or Phone number: 888-788-0099 (Toll Free), Webinar ID: 821 3979 5053. At this Town Hall, the TCC will discuss: Status of Boy Scout’s Disclosure Statement Status of negotiations with the Boy Scouts, Local Councils, Chartered Organizations, and Insurers Other pending motions before the Court The plan confirmation process

Yeah, there's a lot of this that is operating on a sorta "let's try this and hope no one legally challenges it"

The current BSA plan calls for all claims to go to the Trustee. ALL. So no, the SOL victims can NOT simply go and sue the insurance companies. And if there are lookback windows that reopen later, the claimant has to go back to the trustee who has it in his/her "sole discretion" to allow the reopen.

If that RSA hits the docket by midnight, we'll know. And "best deal" may not be "deal that can get 2/3rds approval".

That's not that much of a shock. The insurance companies are not going to pay 1 penny more than they have to. That means if the abuse took place in a state in which the statute of limitations has long since lapsed and there is no lookback window, there is absolutely no incentive whatsoever for the insurance companies to pay out fully on the claim and absolutely no way that the Trustee was going to force them to pay. The only hope for them to get fully compensated on their claim is if sometime down the road their state reopens the SOL window, and even then they'd have to convince the Settlement Trustee to reopen the claim. RSA = restructuring support agreement I believe?

Er, sorta. It looks to me like the ONLY reason they are net positive this month was taking $20 million out of their endowment. That's not exactly optimal.

I interpret this being in parentheses as a net loss for HA bases

Yep. 1.97 million down to 760k and there is no chance of BSA even reaching 1 million scouts prior to 2025, according to BSA's own projections. In fact, it won't even get back to 50% of its 2019 totals (987k) until 2024 at the earliest.

BSA monthly report for the month ending May 31, 2021 https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/b530ab52-51fe-4570-b64a-4b1f959d6d4f_5454.pdf Total Ending Unrestricted Cash Balance - BSA is up almost $18 million (from 54,306,000 to 72,529,000) thanks to a $20 million dollar transfer from BSA's endowment into its operating fund. Revenue was 9,672,000, including a 3,735,000 loss on HA bases. To date, the HA bases have lost BSA 32,184,00 this year but that number should bounce back up as revenue comes in from people attending over the summer Now, compare that to May 2020 https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/829308_916.pdf Total Ending Unrestricted Cash Balance - BSA was $112 million.

I am not sure what you are asking here. Do you think that there are simply going to be thousands of liars amid the claimants? As for your hypothetical, the documents are all filed on pain of perjury and possible criminal sanctions. So yes, let's game that out. If for whatever reason a person flat out lied about the abuse, got the money, they proceeded to use the money to buy a billboard that said "Ha, ha. I lied and got money from the BSA child sexual abuse trust settlement. Bite me." then a) the trustee could demand the money be returned and seek civil enforcement and b) refer the matter to the U.S Attorney's office for possible prosecution. The odds of this happening are so close to 0% as to be effectively 0%. No, there's an expectation that thousands will only be PARTIALLY verifiable, which is why the Trustee will have a multiplier. The example would be I guess if a person was abused, could identify the abuser (Scoutmaster Smith) and the time (June 1977) but not the exact, precise location ("It was at summer camp, I cannot remember the name of it, when we were at summer camp.") then the claim may be adjusted downward slightly.

Which is yet another reason why I'll echo what the TCC has told all victims: hire a lawyer who specializes in sexual abuse claims sooner rather than later. The BSA settlement is just the start of a long, long road that will be in front of the Settlement Trustee for years.

Oh, and statutes of limitations are going to play a huge role in this process. If it can be shown, for example, the abuse claim is in a state where there is no lookback window, the claim value can be dropped to basically 1% (Amount of Claim * 0.01). So what happens if a few years down the road the claim could be revived under a newly enacted lookback window? Yep. Settlement Trustee gets to decide what happens and whether to reopen the claim.

See page 212 ("Incomplete or Suspicious Evidence of Abuse.") and page 189 ("Prevention and Detection of Fraud") https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/2e699803-3fcf-4cc3-9c54-2f36667e9b4a_5371.pdf The standard is "preponderance of the evidence". This is the extremely, extremely important part. and Meaning that if the claimant can NOT prove via a preponderance of the evidence those two elements, their claim value is multiplied by a number less than 1. If it is show that the information is false, the claim is multiplied by zero and of course anything multiplied by zero = $0 And it is all, entirely, in the hands of the Settlement Trustee to decide if the evidence is sufficient.