Muttsy

Correction: “Nobody’s life, liberty or property is safe while the legislature is in session.” I know for a fact that people supposedly dead on the statute in bad states are getting 50-100k. The cost and risk to the carrier isn’t worth litigating the issue with the plaintiff.

Those laws are being ignored or circumvented. Look at CO and LA. Years ago in a political science class, my professor remarked that “nobody’s life or liberty is safe while the legislature is in session.” I think a survivor if presentented with hope or 15k, will choose hope.

Agree. The Hartford settlement put the lie to there being billions more from carriers. Century Chubb will never pay more one an exposure basis than Hartford. Maybe a billion but that’s it. The Coalition is only in this for their own personal gain. The claimants aren’t stupid. Get BSA out of the equation and take aim at the others in state court where the balance of leverage shifts. It’s the only way to extract fair value which is on a state by state, council by council, CO by CO basis. 5.0 has no chance. If BSA was smart it would immediately revert to the toggle. Going forward like this is suicidal.

This pleading reeks of desperation. This is what panic looks like.

To your knowledge has any judge sitting on the DE bankruptcy bench ever refused to confirm a plan over creditors’ objections to non-debtor releases?

Not sure of anything. But hard evidence has been in scant supply in this case about anything and I don’t see that changing. Without evidence our minds are left with intuition which I once heard was “intelligence in a hurry.”

The non-debtor releases are problematic as noted earlier. For it to work under the “best interests of the creditors test” the claimants with claims involving Council XYZ, the claimants would need an XYZ contribution at least as big as he would get in an XYZ Ch 11. Same with COs. The LC contributions don’t follow any logical pattern I can discern. These may need to be broken out claimant/council/assets with 265 or however many pools of claims and those claimants would be paid in part out of their local council asset pool. Not one big global pool because that could never garner enough votes. If I’ve got a great claim against say, GNC, why would I vote to support a plan that makes me share with someone abused in a small asset council? This entire discussion is academic because there isn’t enough money for this to work except maybe a BSA only plan. Under Plan 5.0 the most horrible child rape case you can imagine which happened in the best open state would at the very best receive $160,000 before attorneys fees That person is going to want to get in to the tort system and light them up BSA needs to be removed from the picture one way or another. It’s control of the case must end for the case to move forward. Global is never going to happen. The Coalition people are flat out lying when they go on tv and say there will be tens of billions more. The new settlement with Hartford puts the lie to those representations. That’s the only fraud going on in this case.

I tend to agree. The aggregator fraud argument is a red-herring. Bad form for insurance companies to attack abuse victims so attack the lawyers instead. There are ways and means to weed out fraudulent claims. There are companies that provide these services in mass tort cases. She won’t be swayed to wade into that morass. A claim may not have been adequately vetted by the lawyers but that doesn’t mean the client’s claim is bogus. Also CR 11 apples to pleadings in courts not to proofs of claim in bankruptcy. Lawyers who file pleadings without doing due diligence are permitted to cure it through amendment of the pleading. A lawyer who blows a statute because the client retained him six hours before midnight will not be sanctioned for filing the skeletal lawsuit. He will be sued or sanctioned for failing to protect his client’s legal rights if he fails to file. Finally, she will not engage in a how many angels dancing on the head of a pin debate about weighted voting based on SOL. SOL she will say is to be resolved through the TDP after confirmation, if at all. I seem to remember a remark she made very early in the case that she didn’t think SOL should factor at all in this case. The most you might see her do is allow for the $3500 “quick pay” check box on the ballot. If the claimant elects quick pay then their vote does not get counted.

Colorado did an interesting work around to the prohibition against retroactive legislation. They created a whole new civil action that is not tied to the SOL sounding in negligence. It either has no SOL or it has a longer period to file a law suit. I haven’t followed what has happened nor say what a CO appellate court might do, but it’s law and it will likely be used in other states. https://childusa.org/2021sol/

I think the TCC Plan will appeal to the judge who probably doesn’t care which plan gets BSA out of bankruptcy. The TCC plan is less problematic legally because it allows survivors to go back in to the tort system and get actual judgments which would be binding on the carriers. That’s where the true pressure points are. Plan 5.0 is cockamamie, rife with appeal issues and too cheap.

I’m wondering if the TCC approach requires 2/3rds. It is a consensual plan for those who consent. The non-participating entities don’t get released. I think it gives the trustee much more leverage. It puts some money in survivors’ pockets now and preserves the prospect of much larger insurance contributions down the road.

I like the TCC Plan. A LOT. Quite an about face. It is a much clearer path. I’m sorry it has taken so long to roll out. It could well be a game changer.

I think the point of his Tweet is that DE is in the Third Federal Circuit which recognizes third party releases. TEXAS is the Fifth Circuit which does NOT. They used their DE shell corp to get it into the 3rd Circuit. We’ll see what she does here but she has a record not substantially different from Judge Drain. Maybe BSA just got lucky at the roulette wheel when it landed on green.

Please tell us what assets and separate insurance coverage exists for the Methodists, Catholic dioceses, LDS and or the 56000 other chartering organizations. Until then, what you say is unsubstantiated hooey.

The one positive when 5.0 is announced is that all the RSA promoters and their fellow travelers won’t be able to proclaim that “sure you’lll get pennies now but they’ll be gazillions in insurance later.” Because there won’t be. You’ll maybe get 20k before attorneys fees and that’s it. Best we could do. Take it or leave it.

In his defense, I saw and heard things that sounded very much like the RSA/4.0 framework was a done deal. The Trust Distribution aspects were affirmed by Lucas and Stang with certitude. Will I get a vote? Yes Will I get less if I was abused in a state with a bad statute? Yes How much less will I get? There are tiers depending on how bad the statute is in you abuse state Lots of talk about the 3500 dollar benefits and how quickly those men could get the cash to pay their bills The body language was telling as was the gratuitous comments by Chambers and Kennedy. Paraphrasing …Money isn’t everything, ya know, and wait until you see the non-monetary conditions and safeguards that will be put in place. She’s a real cream puff AND we will throw in a pair of floor mats. Personally I’ve seen this movie before. They are trying to goose up the Hartford settlement a little and get Century to pay some. Some charters will kick in but the remaining assets and insurance coverage not only BSA but all the separate coverage owned by the CO’s will get a pass in exchange for complete immunity. It will make even the Sacklers blush

I guess relevant to me. I care what people really think when they are asked the hard question. The rest is just noise and banter “sound and fury signifying nothing.”

I don’t know. I really don’t know. This may be an inappropriate request to the moderators but here goes. This forum embodies a wide spectrum of views, which is its strength. It shares a shallow or deep or middling attachment to BSA as a company from persisting. Accept that with or without BSA, scouting will go on, and perhaps thrive or not. I don’t know. So, moderators, I request a straw poll be done here, on Plan 4.0. I want to know whether this forum continues to be relevant to anyone.

I don’t understand why LC’s assets are off limits to BSA. In every charter I’ve read it states that BSA has the absolute right to terminate a charter. For any reason or no reason. The transfer of assets from one charitable org to another pursuant to a contract does not appear to be an unlawful transfer. It appears to be a lawful transfer. Second, BSA owns all the IP rights. LC’s could be enjoined by a state court if they use BSA’s name, insignias, everything. Third, under the Congressional Charter the local councils existence deriveS directly from BSA. Fourth, there is overwhelming evidence that the LC’s are alter egos of BSA based on the degree of control and financial interconnectedness. it was a mistake not to have pursued substantive consolidation. If it had happened the whole problem of third party releases (the Sackler victim screw over issue) and the 2/3rd voting required could have been avoided. But BSA and the LC’s didn’t want the TCC digging that deep in to LC assets. Instead the TCC had use guesswork to come up with an approximation of LC asset values. So here we are. No releases for LC’s or CO’s and a BSA National that probably cannot meet the financial viability test to get a BSA only plan confirmed. Finally, the level of mistrust and rancor generated by BSA’s machinations throughout the case have poisoned the well that ardent supporters of BSA have become disillusioned.

Technically you could be right. But what then for BSA? She has to find the BSA only discharge leaves it with what financially to start over? No cash, the bases and a donor base spigot it could turn on. It could close LC’s or merge them and grab their assets. Then it could quickly file another Ch 11 to discharge any other liabilities it carries out of Ch 11 1.0. Not sure how it operates without chartering orgs. I’m sure they have a plan for that. Or maybe the mountain of blunders, bad legal advice and rank incompetence make the situation not resolvable. I’m just not seeing the path, just the Road to Perdition

There is a significant pile of further anecdotal evidence mounting in this forum that demonstrates how child molesters could so easily enter scouting, undetected and unvetted, even during the early days of YP. Anyone remember the 3Rs program? The reality of a criminal background check, while itself inadequate, is nonetheless an important “barrier to entry.” The BSA had the audacity to testify to Congress that in addition to the administrative burdens, and checking about prior convictions or accusations would also deter adults from volunteering. BSA understood exactly what it was doing. It wasn’t interested in excluding ANYBODY except gays and atheists.

There have been multiple BSA membership fraud scandals. There was one in the early 2000’s. The FBI opened an investigation. It ended with some kind of consent decree with BSA that they wouldn’t do it again. The fraud is connected to the fact that large charities like United Way make donations in relation to the number of people, here scouts, actually serve. BSA fought criminal background checks until around 2006. In the 1990’s BSA testified before Congresss that it should not be required to do them because of the administrative burden despite the fact that the FBI did not charge not for profits to do them. Note: This is in the epilogue to Boyle’s book Scouts Honor.

Of course you should volunteer. As a volunteer I believe you are or were an additional insured on BSA’s policies. If you are volunteering for any group you should be covered on it’s policies or it should be a deal-breaker for you.

Fair points. But to be clear I don’t see this being a plan encompassing LC’s. With a Toggle plan or the TCC’s yet to be unveiled Toggle plus plan, a simple majority is all that’s needed. But even that assumes she would ever approve a plan that doesn’t meet the “best interests of the creditors test which means the Crown Jewels of some of them would need to be sold.

Trump tweeted his way to the Presidency. What matters is how he advises the AIS law firms’ 16000+ clients about the present or future Plan. As it stands now, does he really need to be very persuasive? Take 3k now before attorneys fees and we can’t say whether the insurance carriers have any money or ability to pay anything close to a reasonable settlement despite their massive exposure. Century may have little or nothing; Hartford’s obligation is ratcheted to a Century 1.3B payment, which it probably doesn’t have. And Chubb who owns Century has no obligation to infuse it with more cash as per the 1996/99 transactions the details of which are in a black box that judge says must stay there. And then the installment of a valuation special master to determine claim values binding on the carriers is a road to years of appellate litigation. There are many other law firms that will recommend a no vote. Who knows where the TCC and 2/3rds of AIS will stand when it gets down to it? Kosnoff doesn’t need to be influential or Twitter-powerful. Most survivors know how to count. If BSA escapes with a cram down, how much will it escape with? How viable is a Reorganized BSA without its COs and LCs, most of whom will probably just fold their tents. Some will file Ch 11’s. Is the judge still so enamored of the BSA that she would cram down over the overwhelming rejection of the survivors? She seemed different at last Monday’s hearing I sensed she was disgusted at how badly BSA played it’s hand in this bankruptcy. And she is borderline hostile to the Coalition who have only been “constructive” in terms of larding their own pantry