CynicalScouter

Right, but what was argued in other cases as to BSA's liability is that they kept seeing the same things over and over regarding abuse, made settlements, and did nothing else until YP. That's going to, and has, gone to show negligence; BSA National knew or past a certain point should have known they had a systemic problem on their hands and did nothing/not enough. BSA has, in effect, acknowledged this in their prior public statements. This was the statement of Jim Turley as Chair of the BSA Board. Bold in original That's not the only statement where BSA has admitted they "failed", but it is the one that was released simultaneous with the bankruptcy filing. In other words, there's an acknowledgement BSA erred. The only question left is how much will that cost and when will it be paid. Concerns to the contrary are at this point utterly moot.

Yep. To this day, BSA tried a coverup. TCC and others asked BSA to release the number of out of court settlements they had reached in these sexual abuse cases. BSA would only allow release of 3 or 4 years of settlement data until they were forced to try and defend that in front of the judge at the hearing a few weeks ago. To my recollection, BSA said it would release the full list of settlements to TCC. They are still trying to cover up how much they knew and when. That's why, well one of the reasons why, the TCC is asking for the FULL release of the IV files (names redacted) to make it clear: BSA knew for DECADES it had a problem.

You were a victim. I am sorry some people in this forum are trying to victimize you again.

Used to be nonfeasance: you were REQUIRED BY LAW OR DUTY to do something but failed to do so. BSA was required by common law and duty to take care that youth were not harmed (duty to care generally, duty to care for minors in particular) through its negligence (not: NOT willfulness, NOT deliberate act, NEGLIGENCE) allowed them to be harmed.

No, it would not have. Again, the point is not that BSA failed to report, I don't know how many times I have to repeat this. It was that BSA negligently allowed the abuse to occur in the first place.

This "data" is based on your misreading and misinterpretation. We don't know how much of a difference. For one thing, you assume (wrongly) that there were ONLY 84,000 instances of child sexual abuse in BSA over that time period. That's a bad assumption for 3 reasons. Those who were abused and opted to not to file a claim. Those who were abused and were dead prior to the claim date. Those who were abused and were unaware of the claim date. Etc. Taking 84,000 as "the" number of child sexual abuse victims and then attempting to do some back of the envelope math to "prove" BSA was 10-100 fold less likely to be abused is bad social science, poor math, and would get you laughed out of the Research Methods 101. If you really, really, wanted to conduct social science research you'd draw a statistically significant sample of BSA members across the years/decades and compute an abuse rate based on that sampling. Not "who filed a claim in a bankruptcy case". BSA is going to pay. You may not like tort claims based on negligence/duty to care for children. You may not like the extension of statutes of limitations to allow for such claims to be filed now. But if that's your problem call your state legislature. In the meantime, BSA is going to pay for what they did (coverup) and what they failed to do (negligence).

Just a gentle reminder: the sexual abuse victims are the victims here. Not BSA. Thanks.

That "data" is based on your misreading and misinterpretation. We don't know how much of a difference. For one thing, you assume (wrongly) that there were ONLY 84,000 instances of child sexual abuse in BSA over that time period. That's a bad assumption for 3 reasons. Those who were abused and opted to not to file a claim. Those who were abused and were dead prior to the claim date. Those who were abused and were unaware of the claim date. Etc. Taking 84,000 as "the" number of child sexual abuse victims and then attempting to do some back of the envelope math to "prove" BSA was 10-100 fold less likely to be abused is bad social science, poor math, and would get you laughed out of the Research Methods 101. If you really, really, wanted to conduct social science research you'd draw a statistically significant sample of BSA members across the years/decades and compute an abuse rate based on that sampling. Not "who filed a claim in a bankruptcy case". BSA is going to pay. You may not like tort claims based on negligence/duty to care for children. You may not like the extension of statutes of limitations to allow for such claims to be filed now. But if that's your problem call your state legislature. In the meantime, BSA is going to pay for what they did (coverup) and what they failed to do (negligence).

Because the non-reporting victim had no legal duty to care for other scouts. BSA did, and was negligent in that duty to care. As was shown in the Oregon and other cases: BSA officials KNEW they had a problem and did nothing and/or engaged in coverups. That's "allowed" enough to prove BSA was negligent. Moreover, and this is key, BSA is going to be forced soon (if it hasn't happened already) to release a list of ALL the sexual abuse claims over the decades and the amounts paid out. That will show that BSA officials knew they had a problem but found it cheaper/easier to just pay out than to actually make changes to the program. First, that's not TCC's responsibility. Their legal fiduciary duty is to operate for the victims. Second, despite not having any legal need to do so, TCC has said it will in fact be coming out with a plan in improve YP and will be asking the court to order BSA to put it into place. No, it is on the line because it acted negligent over the course of DECADES when it knew it had a child sexual abuse problem and did nothing. And the dozens of lawsuits they've already lost and settlements they reached, not to mention the information and statements from BSA officials released when Oregon courts ordered the IV files partially opened show BSA knew, did nothing (or nothing much), and just kept on going doing what it was doing.

They did a fireside chat about membership growth. Video should be up soon. In short, the plan is that between the new rebranding/marketing campaign and plans to reach out to millennial moms (millennial moms were mentioned no fewer than 4 times) that parents will be eager to get their kids out into the outdoors and that is what BSA has to offer. Let's see how that goes. They also told the court what they think is the real cause for the decline in membership/what will be the cause and their solutions. This is as "concrete" as they are going to get. https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/213bd53f-b44f-45c9-97fc-246bcb7ca06b_4108.pdf Adjustments to programming and operations to account for reduced membership, including the departure of Scouts affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Channeling all Abuse Claims to the Settlement Trust, which will remove a significant impediment to the Debtors’ continued operational success. Broadening program access for girls and young women, thus potentially doubling total potential participants in Cubs Scouts and Scouts BSA age groups. Reimaging public relations campaign to bolster positive visibility and move the organization past bankruptcy, which can generate new interest in Scouting and generate increased donations. Improving the organization’s online registration system. Improving the rechartering system for Local Councils and Chartered Organizations. Expanding delivery methods that make it easier for individuals who might not have access to a local Scouting unit to participate through lone Cub Scouting and increasing these Scouts’ virtual experience. Gradual restoration of Local Council resources / refocus on membership growth.

Absolutely not true. This has nothing to do with the claim of negligence (that BSA was negligent in supervision of the program and the abusive leaders) I feel like I've told you specifically this at least three times before: NONE of the suits are about BSA's failure to report. NONE. So claims of "we were worried about libel/slander" suits is hogwash and, interestingly, NOT a defense that BSA has ever raised in its lawsuits. Why? Because it is hogwash. The claim, as I laid out, is that they allowed the abusers free rein on the scouts, knew they had a systemic problem with child sexual abuse, did NOTHING or NOT ENOUGH (IV files), etc. Failure to report? Literally not an issue. But let's go one step further: EVEN IF the BSA had reported the pedophile and the abuser was convicted, that would have precisely NO impact on the negligence claims that BSA allowed the abuse to happen in the first place.

One more note and what the TCC and others want. In addition to amount of times BSA has lost/been ordered to pay damages for its negligence (that's all in court records), they ALSO want to know how many times and how much BSA has had to pay out in out-of-court settlements. BSA only wanted to give up settlement data for the last few years Why? Two reasons. Prior knowledge: if it can be shown that BSA had been paying out numerous settlements for DECADES, then it demonstrates negligence. It shows BSA KNEW it had a problem, KNEW it was systemic and widespread, KNEW it was not going to just go away, and did nothing or not enough. That will be powerful for any claims prior to the institution of YP (and even after if it can be shown that YP wasn't working and resulted in abuse that was simply settled out of court). How much were prior victims compensated. I am NOT going to graphic here but let me give a non-sex-abuse example. If, in those settlements listed in #1, BSA were to say have paid out to each scout who had a finger cut off $1 million, and $2 million for a hand, and $4 million for an eye, then if BSA is NOW offering $50,000 for a finger, and $100,000 for a hand, what gives? Why the low ball? Similarly, if BSA is looking to only pay out certain amounts for sexual abuse when in the past it has paid out 10-100 times as much, what gives? It shows that even BSA knows that the compensation numbers it is coming up with are bogus.

The reason BSA is being sued (and has lost numerous times in state courts prior to 2020) is that yes, the pedophile did it, but BSA was negligent in allowing it to happen. In short, and I mean very, very short: 1) Boy Scouts of America (BSA National, the Congressionally Chartered entity) created the Boy Scouts (or Cub Scouts, or whatever) program and chartered local councils to carry that program out. 2) Boy Scouts of America directly chartered each year the units in question. 3) Boy Scouts of America knew from early, early on it had a pedophile problem and created the Ineligible Volunteer Files. 4) Boy Scouts of America, the Local Council, and the CO still acted recklessly or negligently in allowing the abuser to access to the scout. Therefore Negligence/Duty of reasonable care - BSA had an obligation to look after these kids and not let them be harmed. Negligence in Supervision - the abusive leader was an "agent of [Boy Scouts] was under [Boy Scouts] direct supervision, and control" using BSA methods, uniforms, instruction, etc. Negligence in Retention - the abusive leader was not shoved out the door fast enough Negligence in Hiring - (yes a volunteer is "hired" for these purposes) Boy Scouts failed to do enough of a background check to detect the abuser's tendencies and nevertheless held the abusive leader out as a "competent and trustworthy scout leader, supervisor, servant, teacher, and counselor." Now, before people start screaming "That's not fair! That's not right!" keep in mind that these are the underlying arguments that have already been successfully used against BSA and LCs in the past.

Regarding letters to the judge: please be aware that at this point she has been very clear: she's not reading them.

One last point about this. Most of the audience at NAM are BSA professionals and council level volunteers (Council Board members). I would not expect a message of "We are dead, go back to your councils and prepare to be destroyed in court" but I was honestly a tad taken aback by the sheer "We are done! Hurrah!" messaging. We come back to the problem when NAM told Local Councils that no matter what, none of the bankruptcy will blow back onto LCs. Either BSA National knew that was a fiction and proceeded to lie BSA National knew there was going to be SOME, LITTLE blowback and decided to put on a happy face BSA National truly did think it would have no impact on LCs and just got caught like deer in the headlights We have a similar situation here BSA National knows this is far from over for BSA National (and forget about LCs and COs, they are so, so up a creek at this point) and is simply lying so as to not scare the local councils leaders BSA National thinks it is going to be done by August and while it is going to be bad, it won't be THAT bad (read: cramdown toggle) BSA National truly thinks this is all over for everyone (read: global plan) and is blissfully naive EDIT: Or, perhaps option 4: a deal really has been reached and BSA is prepared to come to the June 4 hearing with something that looks like a deal.

So, I sat through NAM and some of the fireside chats. The message is that BSA is "almost done" or "finishing up" the bankruptcy and this will all be over very, very soon. That's the message: we are done. Light at the end of the tunnel. All is well. Just a little bit longer. They have hired a big PR company to rebrand and make people who don't even know what scouting is aware of what scouting is the minute the bankruptcy is over. There was not a word about local councils or COs. Anyone expecting big changes to YP are going to be disappointed. The only major "shift" was to move to BSA SAFE and away from the the Sweet 16 of BSA Safety which boils down to shifting from one mnemonic device to another and appears to have no policy implications whatsoever. I'm not surprised there was no talk about the bankruptcy other than a load of happy talk and NO conversations about LCs and COs. The actual presentation at the NAM Business Meeting was as scripted as a hostage video and was read with a monotone. Clearly, every single word was parsed, re-parsed, and re-re parsed by BSA Legal and Bankruptcy Counsel. The Fireside Chat about how to recruit young people into the program (and adults, too) seemed to really emphasize the untapped market of people who were not ever aware scouting was an option in their area. Absolutely no indication that BSA has already said, in writing to the court, they expect to see declines for years. Videos from these sessions should be up in the next week or so.

Two things: 1) There's a membership spiral effect. I've been part of volunteer orgs. Your membership declines, but your infrastructure hasn't, so you raise fees "a little" to compensate. That drives out more members. Rinse and repeat. 2) The fee increases at this point are "baked in". The BSA has already told the court that fees will continue to increase. And from a business perspective, they have to. In the same document, the BSA admits to more membership losses. There's only but so many people you can layoff (I've heard numbers ranging from 40-90% of National staff are now gone). So, what are you going to do? Raise revenue. In addition, say that the BSA announced in the reorg plan it was CUTTING fees. The TCC and others would pounce: if BSA's got enough cash to cut fees, it can use that cash to pay for abuse victims, instead.

Two mods. One was a BSA employee until the layoffs last year. The other's a unit leader. When the DEI draft leaked, several people self-identifying as scout employees/executives flooded in to make it clear these were "Draft" "not official" etc. So, I suspect BSA corporate is watching it like a hawk, which may explain some of the clampdowns. Or, the other is that they really just don't want to hear anything negative which their latest "megathread" made clear they don't want. It's all happy talk. They just want ban-happy last week after the bankruptcy hearing as well and made it very public they had banned people who were "doomsaying." And when reality sets in, camps get sold, etc. people are going to be real shocked and surprised.

They insist only "positive" posts can happen there and that any talk (and I've seen items [Removed] that were clearly not that bad) is "doomsaying" and "speculation", despite several posters who simply linked to BSA bankruptcy documents, so, not speculation. When the reality hits of camp losses and such, they'll squelch that, too.

The latest on the Chubb document demands, or, how even lawyers (or their paralegals) can screw stuff up. 1) As you may recall, there's a huge push to try and figure out the relationship between Century, Chubb, INA, etc. 2) TCC and others first asked Chubb for documents, then issued a subpoena. Chubb and Century responded with... 3) we do and don't know what they responded with. Last night the TCC and others filed a letter asking for the judge to ORDER Chubb and Century to release/reveal certain things. Here's the problem. The ORIGINAL posting to the court's docket and OMNI included as exhibits to the letter to the judge the Chubb and Century responses. https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/6a3a77a4-56e8-4223-85e5-2f79660d2138_5057.pdf Note that is now a broken link? Because someone, somewhere along the line, erred. Those exhibits were still considered confidential or privileged. So, there's a (what I bet emergency) entry and removal of the document and replacement with https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/6a3a77a4-56e8-4223-85e5-2f79660d2138_5057_A.pdf Anyway, the point is that TCC and others want a court order for Chubb/Century to start producing docs. Now.

Reddit exile here as well. There is no need to wallow in the negative about what is happening to BSA. But on the other hand, the mods of the largest BSA subreddit "over there" have all but removed ANY information about the bankruptcy, loss of camps and banned the people who posted about it. Whereas the mods here are gentle, kind, tender, loving, and willing to at least allow the discussion. And have I mentioned how amazingly awesome the totally great mods are here?

I should also note that late last week (before BSA's Sunday document dump) Century put in supporting documents for its request for a 2 month delay in the proceedings. https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/1c756a66-b424-4724-a2e0-09abe5b649d2_4113.pdf They also announced their plans to call witnesses for the May 19 hearing. https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/968e781f-fbf7-40eb-827c-17bcf313afbc_4093.pdf

BSA released its revised plan and the Ad Hoc Committee of Local Councils filed a supporting document Sunday. BSA's revised plan: https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/a9a4a058-b1c0-4f60-96d0-f9c4a510868b_4107.pdf Ad Hoc Committee of Local Council's Statement: https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/60803144-4f8b-4d9d-98fd-e93ae9818079_4103.pdf Did the LC's provide detailed information about assets and what they will/will not pay? Goodness no! The LCs did make one thing clear: they will fight tooth and claw any attempt to revoke charters to get at LC assets. More broadly, under this new BSA plan 2.0, 2.5, 3.0, whatever nothing changes. They still insist they do not need to disclose LC assets at this point and want to go full throttle. All BSA will do is promise to do its very best to get $425 million. All the LCs promise is that they will consider putting in what they feel they can for the abuse settlement. But oh, by the way, all LC funds (or almost all) are restricted ("with the bulk of many Local Councils’ assets legally restricted and unavailable to fund any contribution"). Of course, as the TCC has amply shown, the Ad Hoc Committee is, if not flat out lying, being very sloppy in its work about how "restricted" many of these "restricted" properties are. And get this: the BSA and Ad Hoc Committee of LCs wants to send this plan to a vote/solicitation BEFORE THEY GET THE BINDING COMMITMENTS. AS THE VOTE IS OCCURRING. So, to review. This is the BSA and LCs grand plan: Send out for solicitation/votes on June 2, a plan that has NO details and NO "binding" commitments from ANY LCs other than "We, BSA, promise to ask LCs to give up $425 million. Trust us. While the voting is ongoing, the Ad Hoc committee or someone will send a document to the court (not the victims, just the court) with information of what LCs have agreed to what by June 15. That information MAY be included/ victims informed around July 16 when the Plan Supplement Deadline is, less than 14 days before the voting deadline of July 30. This is the sum total of EXHIBIT F LOCAL COUNCIL SETTLEMENT CONTRIBUTION. BSA isn't even trying, not that they ever did. The first plan was a blank page. This is not much better. "Committed" "Voluntary commitments" "Status report" Child sexual abuse victims: you are being asked to vote with little to no knowledge of what it is you are actually voting to receive/what LCs are going to give. And being asked to trust that BSA will lift a finger to really, really put pressure on those LCs to get that $425 million. And if they don't? Well...I see nothing about any kind of enforcement mechanism. If it comes in at 47 cents and a handful of Skittles, BSA still walks away as does the LCs. BSA defenders: these are the "noble" leaders of BSA? Trying to ram and jam a plan without even bothering to give victims the information necessary to make an informed vote? For both sides: remember, this is BSA's "Hail Mary" pass. They absolutely insist they will be out of cash flow by August. Even if the judge, for whatever bizarre reason, agreed to this on May 19, the confirmation hearing is August 30, 2021. And you still, somehow, need to get 2/3rds of all abuse claimants to approve this. Someone, anyone, help me understand. Does BSA really, truly think this is going to get past a judge? Seriously?

BSA is pleading poverty in front of a bankruptcy court saying they will run out of cash flow in August. No way they can start giving away freebies.

They may be so desperate for cash they have no choice.