CynicalScouter

Is it reasonable to believe 2/3rds of abuse victims will approve a plan where a big piece (insurance assignments) remain a big, giant question mark? In other words, my read is there are 4 sources for the Settlement Trust: 1) BSA National. I assume a TCC/Coalition/FCR deal will specifically state the amount OR items to be placed into the trust (cash worth X, High Adventure properties valued at Y, other items worth Z). 2) Local Councils. I assume again a similar specific amount (cash worth X, camps worth Y, other items worth Z). This MAY be 1 number, or it could be up to 240 different numbers, one for each participating LC. So far, we've got quantifiable numbers. A victim can vote knowing this data. But not 3) CO contributions 4) Insurance for all the above. Because those are not even close to being near a number (at least based on public info). Moreover, would $2-3B in cash and LC real estate + "insurance and CO contributions, TBD" be enough? $3 billion sounds like a lot, but divided out among 84,000 claims and it is $35,000. Yes, I know that not all claims will be compensated the same, but still. That's a pittance vs. $1+ million sexual abuse judgements. Will victims look at $35,000 (on average) + future insurance + future CO contributions and say "not enough"?

Right, and this is what shocks me about the recent NAM and the near-constant din of "the bankruptcy is almost over." Almost over? Just because BSA claims (and I say claims) it is going to be cash poor in August doesn't make it so and doesn't mean that the TCC or others are going to accept this. The judge is scared of BSA dying from cash loss, but since November at least the mediators appear to have done nothing more than dawdle. Other than the bar date and the contents of the notification, NO issue of substance has been ruled on one way or the other. June 4 is the next "big date". We know that, mathematically, it is now impossible for BSA's reorganization plan to be sent out for a vote, approved (it won't be, but just pretend for a second) and confirmed by August 31. Also, and correct me if I am wrong, but I seem to recall that the March 2021 agreement to allow the automatic stay due to bankruptcy in state proceedings is set to expire in July (the March agreement allowed suits to be filed because of statute of limitations issues, but not proceed). The count in March was 900+ lawsuits, active and filed. Lookback windows are closing in NY and elsewhere. Wild guess here: the number of cases filed is now 1,500. If you told me 2,000 or 3,000, I wouldn't be shocked. And oh, by the way, Arkansas just enacted a bill to allow claims of victims up to age 55. That's another potential 800-900 suits. "Rapidly collapsing" sounds right. And I still cannot figure out how you get to 2/3rds "yes" of abuse victims anytime soon. I mean unless some mega-omnibus agreement is reached, which stranger things have happened, but with so many parties and pieces (LCs, COs, and Chubb/Century indicating that they will drag this out a thousand years if they have to, etc.) Forget August 2021; I'd take odds on August 2022, by which point BSA's bled out all its cash.

Note the language 1) This could mean that the DE and commissioners will do what you did: tell the CO/COR/IH the unit is failing and why (Key-3) and work with the CO to start kicking out the Key-3. BUT since more COs couldn't care less/"We just rent them space"... 2) I suppose in an extreme case where the DE and commissioners identify the Key-3 as an issue, simply refuse to accept their application at recharter and ask for a new Key-3. Of course that's entirely theoretical and never going to happen. Or 3) The unit dies. For as heavy handed as this appears, the odds of actual implementation seem around 0.

They announced around a year ago why. They changed because of the association of Baden-Powell with colonialism and militarism. https://bpsa-us.org/news/dear-scouts/

Here's the problem and the biggest open secret of BSA in all my years and I guess going back for decades before me. 1) MOST Chartered Organizations couldn't give a rip about what was going on in these units. They signed the papers once a year and went on about their business. If you were to ask the local VFW Hall in East-Wherever South Dakota that chartered a Pack "Do you know what you are committing to?" their leadership would say no. This was just something some guy wanted to do for his son's or grandson's Pack and yeah, sure, we'll sign once a year and let them use the hall once a month. 2) Try to keep in mind that the chartering process was and is considered local and autonomous. The fact that the VFW Hall in East-Wherever South Dakota chartered a Pack has NO bearing in any other VFW. These chartering organization's INSTITUTIONS don't give a rip either. 3) LDS is the big, giant, glaring exception. They ran their units and treated BSA as their own, personal, youth development program, so much so that to be a youth or adult leader in LDS chartered units, you also had to be a youth or adult leader in the LDS church. That caused some problems back when LDS did NOT allow African-Americans to serve as leaders and a young African-American man tried to become senior patrol leader. The entire Varisty Program was, in effect, LDS' way to get youth sports on their terms. 3.5) I'd be remiss if I didn't also note the Methodists were also at an institutional level heavily involved in scouting. They were the #2 chartering org. prior to LDS leaving. Now, they are #1. 4) Imputed knowledge? That's such a tough legal call. We can look at the charter agreements that the COs signed and say "yeah, sure, the CO knew or should have known". They said they would, at any rate, keep an eye open and run these programs. They didn't. Again, not to be a broken record, but so many COs just really, really looked at this as "We are just giving them a hall for free." They had NO idea that they were signing up to take responsibility, both legally and financially. AND they were told over and over that BSA would take care of EVERYTHING including insurance. Yeah. About that insurance.... There's a reason why LDS and the Methodists have AS INSTITUTIONS come into this bankruptcy and thrown up objections; they and their member churches are potentially so, so, so in a world of hurt here. So, in short, whatever legal position can be shown that would impute knowledge by the CO of what is going on, on the ground I would hazard a guess that the actual leaders of these COs had no clue whatsoever what was going on. And most still don't.

I'd defer to you then. I do seem to recall older cases in OR and VA where BSA National was found to not be liable BUT the LC was. That however may have been fact patterns unique to the cases.

https://www.facebook.com/outdoorserviceguides/posts/3922488694502337

Yep, I'm 90% there with you. The only time I can see a Council tinkering with the CO's decision on the Key-3 is health/safety/welfare (they are outright refusing to comply with YP, for example) or they are so far off the BSA programming as to be insane (such as, for example, mandating that all Eagle Scouts must earn 35 merit badges, etc.) But at that point you should be talking about charter revocation. Not tinkering with the Key-3.

I think I've seen almost every permutation. Part of the challenge with this is that since BSA promised (or should I say "promised") to extend insurance to the LCs and COs, the CLAIM may have been joint and severable but the settlement from BSA covered all. I know of several cases where BSA was able to shove everything onto the Local Council or claim that responsibility ended with the LC. The Oregon case was the most famous and critical. Everyone recalls that 2012 the Oregon case ended with the jury awarding $18.5 million punitive judgment against the Boy Scouts of America, the largest ever by far against the organization in a sex case jury trial. The Local Council (Cascade Pacific) was also hit with damages. The Oregon courts also directed the release of the IV files, or at least some. But...there's the rest of the story (sorry Paul Harvey). BSA had won in Oregon. In 1997 they successfully argued that Cascade Pacific Council, however, was still stuck. That's why BSA figured it was going to be AOK in 2012: every indication and all case law (or almost all) previous had said that BSA National was not liable, had no role or oversight, etc. It was only later in other cases coming AFTER the IV files were released in 2012 that BSA started losing over and over because they could no longer claim "We didn't know." or "We had no control" They knew. The fact that they held the files showed control. They were negligent. And they are going to have to pay.

There's a Cub Scout version as well that includes a quota for girls (25%) and popcorn quota (50% of scouts selling) https://www.crossroadsbsa.org/wp-content/uploads/Cub-Scouts-2021-Promise-to-Parents-Pack-Brand-Standards26.pdf

This is what happens when you spend 10 (20? 30?) years harping on Eagle: moms and dads are paying good money and they want to see John (and now Jane) Scout advance. Just like school. This is absolutely screaming pay to advance or pay to play.

A followup: in answer to a story that Heart papers ran about 10 years ago about BSA and LC, Scout Executive Compensation, etc. BSA National put out this; the entire document goes through (in various places, it is interspersed with other things) the SE process. Key graph. https://filestore.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/QAHearstmemoedited1-27-09.pdf 10. Please tell us how scouting executive jobs are awarded in local councils nationwide? Must executives be chosen from another council? If so, why is that? Are there any time restrictions for how long an executive can serve within a council? If so, why are such rules in place? Scout Executives are selected by the local volunteer executive board from a list of qualified and approved candidates. Only Scout Executives, who are the local council’s CEO, must come from outside the council.Other professional scouting executive positions may be promoted from within the council. There is no time limit for an individual to hold a professional position at any level.The BSA is a unique organization and believes that in order to effectively serve as the CEO of a local council, it is important for professionals to have diverse and rich experiences within the BSA.

Here's where things get complicated. The Local Council Board hires the SE, however until recently (3 years? 4? in that range) the Local Council Board could only select from a list of people approved by National ("commissioned"). In order to be on that list, you had to have a certain amount of prior work and experience within scouting, working from from DE, etc. In the last 3-4 years they change the policy to allow SEs to be hired from the "outside world" directly into the SE position, but the SE has to complete certain training and education programs within the first year of employment. Once hired, the SE remains for 3-4 years and can then stay on so long as the Local Council President is happy. The SE can be terminated ONLY by the Local Council President. There was a council board that attempted to circumvent this decades ago by voting to oust an SE. Again, because only the Council President can fire, the SE won his wrongful termination suit. National cannot take any hiring/firing/personnel action as to SEs BUT they/National did hold a trump card of sorts. Remember how I said all SEs had to be "commissioned" by National (meaning met National's standards for Professional Scouters?) In theory, the chief Scout executive (Mosby) could revoke that person's commission. Because holding that commission is a condition employment by the LC, that ends the SE's tenure. I've heard fourth-hand rumors of this having been done in the past, in some far away council, but I've never seen it or directly heard of it. But it is possible. This is, again, why the LCs insist and will keep on insisting they are separate, autonomous, and independent of national in general and with regards to the bankruptcy in particular.

This isn't even JTE. This is basically a pitch parents: we won't waste your time and money. We promise to push rank advancement and merit badges. And if not, we'll remove the offending unit leaders This absolutely treats Scouting like school If students fail to hit certain achievements/pass certain standardized tests, school leadership is replaced. If scouts fail to hit certain rank advancements, Key-3 leadership is replaced.

Nothing was announced, no. The phrase was used several times in terms of BSA's goals to expand "diversity, equity, and inclusion" in terms of board representation, outreach to scouts, etc. But not the merit badge.

Well, here's the thing. I'd say abuse by a DE, SE, or other official BSA employee makes the claim double if triple strong why? Because with a volunteer, you have to wedge in issues related to principle/agent, retention, supervision, etc. With an outright employee? Yeah, you don't need to try to decide if BSA or the LC was suppose to have direct supervision, etc. It's clear: this person's your employee. You should have.

And I guess this is the point of why BSA doesn't make a big deal out of NAM. If you are a den leader, or ASM in some town somewhere what the heck do you care about governance, number of women on council boards, etc. NAM is NOT for you. It's for the Council executives and above. And I get that. If your view of your contribution to scouting really is "one hour a week" on den night or just sitting around while the patrol meeting happens, then what do you care I suppose. But there's the weird niche: the long term scouters, or those with a commitment to the movement, or BSA, or both that will never, ever be the ones to get tapped to be on some committee, called to get their views, or anything else. Some of it is good-old-boy-ism (now good-old-girl-ism, too?). Some is raw cash (I can name at least two councils who will flat out say that the minimum FOS contribution for a Council seat is X, for a exec board position is Y), etc.

First, isn't it sad that an organization has an annual meeting and effectively tries to bury it? They truly, truly don't get it. Second, I think some the people are sincere, but they are in a box. The Scout Executive for San Cabo was energetic, passionate, and very eager to expand and grow scouting, or at least sent off those vibes. The Women on Boards: as soon as I logged in and saw the Q&A was turned off I got the message: shut up and listen. Governance was the same: lot of executive level speak. If I'm a den leader in Pack 123 in the plains of South Dakota do I give a crud that Bill Gates renamed the HQ the National "service center"? Heck no. He brought it up anyway. You are given a topic and told to talk about it knowing that a) it will fly over the heads of 99% of volunteers b) it will be parsed out by lawyers for anything. During the Governance it was mentioned several times that this conversation was in part a carryover from the legal fights where for the last year BSA has said over and over the LCs are independent and autonomous. We're all adults (well, most) and we all know: the real conversations don't happen in the public eye; they are in a room, or a Zoom session, where things get hashed out. There's an entire song "Room Where It Happens" for cripes sake. You are in the room or outside. 99.99% of scouters are outside that room and 99% of scouters may not even know that room even exists.

Chubb/Century have responded to the request from TCC and others for a court order demanding they produce documents. This gets...complicated. But let me explain. Attorneys for parties in a case can make demands for other parties to produce documents relevant to the case. There's usually an escalation process. A letter (this can be skipped) Request to produce (if the party doesn't turn over EVERYTHING asked for in #1 or you can just skip to this) Subpoena duces tecum (if the party doesn't turn over EVERYTHING asked for in #1 and repeated in #2) Court order (sought on formal motion or via letter to the judge) In-between 3 and 4 SOME courts have what is called a "meet and confer" rule. It means before you come to court asking for an order, both sides have to literally talk it out. Phone, zoom, in person, whatever. Call it step 3.5. Chubb/Century's response is that TCC and others skipped step 3.5 and that the court should make them have a meet and confer first. TCC and the others in their original request made it clear: they perceive that Chubb/Century is being obstinate and not wanting a meet and confer and attempts at a meet and confer failed. Now enter Century/Chubb to say....sure. Lets talk! But first, let's slow roll the document production and THEN after we deliver a bunch of documents (SPOILER: none of which will be worth squat) we can talk some more! In other words, drag this on for weeks until we all get to where we know we are heading: Century/Chubb is going to refuse to produce the documents that TCC/Coalition/FCR REALLY want (the PA Insurance Commissioner's approval and process documents) and we are right back to where we are now in about 30-45 days. Stall. Stall. Stall. Sadly, given this particular judge's track record, I suspect she'll grant the Century/Chubb request and delay a decision on ordering Century/Chubb to deliver those documents until Century/Chubb actually fail to produce those documents.

Exactly. There were clearly references to other meetings occurring elsewhere or before/after what was livestreamed. What was streamed was all happy talk. No lawyers. Nothing but precanned remarks. Questions were vetted through Zoom and, in the case of the Fireside chat on Women on Boards, simply turned off completely. One thing that got people upset: during the Women on Boards a Zoom poll noted that around 10% of BSA National's Executive Board and LC Boards were female. What should that percent be? 15? 33%? Precisely 50%? MOST people (585%) who responded said women should only have 33% of board seats. Only 38% backed the 50% plan and 4% supported only having 15% of seats held by women. That did not go over well.

No. All speeches. There was a LOT that was not livestreamed (there was mention of a "general session" meeting that was NOT streamed) and was brought up during today's Fireside Chat about "Governance". A resolution, or series of resolutions, has been introduced by around 50 councils to address "concerns" over the relationship between LCs and BSA National. There are absolutely no copies available for the general public. From what I gather people were asking to see copies of these resolutions but were not given access. During today's Fireside chat on "Governance" former CEO head honcho Bill Gates said that "LCs need BSA National. Without BSA National, there are no LCs. We are in this together." I wish, just wish, I could have seen the looks on some Council Key-3 faces. I'm sure there was a lot of teeth grinding. As I mentioned previously/in another thread: the NAM Business Meeting (which was streamed) looked like a hostage video. It was clear Mosby and others were reading prepared remarks. Mosby is staying on at least another few years ("through the bankruptcy"). Every noise being uttered in the Fireside chats and the streamed portions is that the bankruptcy is over or nearly over and we'll be out soon. Of course, there were a slew of non-streamed committee and subcommittee meetings where I am sure a lot was said that maybe didn't contradict this but may have been a slightly different hue.

And that's for the court and a jury to decide. Here's the thing: over and over again the courts and juries have found that yes, BSA's knowledge and failure to act did reach the point of negligence. This, by the way, is in addition to LC and CO negligence. You can say it is bad, wrong, shouldn't be, totally evil, but that's the current legal landscape. It's why BSA is in bankruptcy because they knew: taking in hundreds (now thousands due to look back windows) of cases to trial was just going to result in a lot of verdicts against BSA that would push them into bankruptcy anyway. Don't like it? Fine. Ask your state legislators to change the laws as they pertain to negligence in your state. Demand Tort Reform(tm). But until that happens, BSA was and is on the hook for negligence.

Look, that's ok. I'm not trying to convince anyone or change minds. I am hoping people get the idea as to WHY the courts have held/will hold that BSA National is going to be liable for negligence here. You may think the courts are wrong, the tort system is wrong, the state legislatures are wrong, etc. But those courts, that tort system, and those state legislatures set the current legal stage. Given current legal conditions, looking back and seeing (through the IV files and the court settlements) that BSA National knew: 1 child sexual abuse claim- negligence is a hard, hard case to make. 10? 100? 1,000? 10,000? Somewhere down that road BSA's continued inaction (nonfeasance) hit the definition of legal negligence. Was it #375? #3675? For these purposes, at this point, it doesn't matter. If I am an attorney for a child sex abuse victim, I am going to Take those IV files (which were released by order of a court in Oregon) Take (or get) a listing of all those settlements BSA reached And walk those into a courtroom to demonstrate BSA National knew or should have known it had a problem and failed to act or failed to sufficiently act to protect my client.

But the difference is the malpractice types. If it is the SAME malpractice, in the SAME way, occurring over the course of YEARS? Yep. That hospital's going to be on the hook for negligence.

This. 1000 times this. If you are a hospital and you have the SAME problem (MERS) in the SAME way (nursing) in the SAME organization (hospital or even hospital system) and happens TWICE (2), that second patient maybe has a claim for negligence. Maybe. Happens 10 times? Meh. 100 times? A thousand times? That's where those IV files and prior settlements come in. BSA knew, it knew for a long time. It knew it wasn't just limited to one unit or one council. It was systemic. That means it owns the negligence.