SNEScouter

As InquisitiveScouter already correctly pointed out, a "friends of" organization that is a CO needs to comply with its charter agreement, which directs the CO to "[r]efrain from soliciting financial support except as authorized for the benefit of the Unit or the Local Council." Even if the CO is a tax exempt org, it can only solicit funds in the name of Scouting with the local council's approval.

BSA policy prohibits units from soliciting donations. I believe the reason is that many states have licensing or requirements before an org can lawfully solicit contributions. And also there’s the issue of obtaining tax exempt (501c3) status. Units generally aren’t set up to deal with the periodic reporting obligations, legal restrictions, and fees associated with this. Eventually they will stumble. A “gala” event might be ok depending how it is executed - like if the cost of attendance is a function of the overall event cost, and not an implicit fundraiser. You’d want the council to sign off on it.

Only my opinion, but I doubt that the Third Circuit will stay the plan now. It has been in effect for some 14 months at this point. I won't be surprised if the Lujan & D&V claimants seek a stay, but I expect it will be denied. Recall that several requests for a stay have been made and denied already, including by the Third Circuit and SCOTUS. Instead, the Third Circuit will move forward to decide the appeal. Recall that the case was already fully briefed and scheduled for oral argument in April at the Third Circuit. However, they decided it made sense to wait a mere couple months for Purdue to be decided before moving ahead with argument and decision. At this point, the Third Circuit may now request limited further briefing on the effect of Purdue. That would be sensible. On the other hand, the issues decided in Purdue were pretty well anticipated in the earlier briefing, so there probably doesn't need to be much more ink spilled on it. The Third Circuit will hear oral argument at some point, and then render a decision. The battleground for the Third Circuit appeal is now squarely focused on equitable mootness - that is, whether the plan has been substantially consummated since going into effect in April 2023, and whether third parties have so changed their position in reliance on the effectiveness of the plan, that it would be near impossible to unwind it. If the Third Circuit finds the appeals to be equitably moot, it could affirm the plan on that basis even in light of Purdue's finding that nonconsensual third-party releases are not permitted under the bankruptcy code. Regardless of the result, expect the losing side to seek SCOTUS review of the eventual ruling by the Third Circuit and/or en banc review (that is, review by the full Third Circuit judges instead of a panel of 3 judges). Why is it hard to unwind the plan? Well, for one reason among many others, 250 +/- local councils have contributed millions of dollars to the Settlement Trust, as well as real estate sold or directly contributed, in exchange for the benefit of the third-party releases contained in the BSA's plan of reorganization. Similarly, the settling insurance companies (Century & Hartford & a few others) bought back the BSA's liability insurance policies in exchange for significant contributions to the Settlement Trust. Significant amounts of the money contributed to the Settlement Trust has been spent, making it hard to simply refund those payments. The plan also involved a significant refinance of the JP Morgan debt that is secured by Philmont, the Summit Bechtel Reserve, and other high adventure bases. Unwinding all of this would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible. Lots of twists and turns stilI to come.

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals has asked for briefing, due March 8, addressing "addressing whether the Court should hold this case C.A.V. pending the issuance of the Supreme Court’s decision in Harrington v. Purdue Pharma LP, No. 23-124. " To me, this seems to make sense. We'll have a Purdue ruling by the 4th of July. At this point, the court and parties are better off knowing the Purdue ruling before charging ahead with oral argument and decision. IMO, the BSA plan will get affirmed regardless of the Purdue outcome, but for different reasons. If third-party releases are acceptable, then the plan gets affirmed easily. If third-party release are rejected, the court will still affirm based on equitable mootness. But the BSA plan is here to stay either way.

You seem to think that financial support of the council does not support "Scouting." That's concerning. BSA has lots of rules and guidelines about how units are to finance their operations, etc., and who can solicit funds from outside sources. (Spoiler - the unit cannot solicit). They're not perfect but they're the rules and simply circumventing them or flouting them isn't the answer IMHO.

SCOTUS vacated the stay. The settlement trust can resume its work. Here's the (very brief) language of the order: "The application for stay presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied. The order heretofore entered by Justice Alito is vacated." Edit to include link to order: https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/022224zr_e2pg.pdf

This is an administrative stay issued by a single justice of the Supreme Court. It is only guaranteed to last a week-ish - just long enough for the entire Supreme Court to consider whether to further halt proceedings. That will be a significant ruling. For now, I suggest not reading too much into this.

At least in the BSA case, that is simply not what happened. Several courts had the opportunity to reject the plan or at least pause its implementation, and did not. It wasn't just one trial judge. The bankruptcy court (Judge Silverstein) first had to confirm the plan, which she did in September 2022 after lengthy proceedings. Then the district court (Judge Andrews) had to affirm the plan which happened in March 2023. Plan opponents then moved in the district court to stay implementation of the plan pending appeal, which Judge Andrews denied. Finally, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals denied a motion to stay implementation of the plan pending appeal on April 19, 2023. Only then did the plan go into effect. That's three different courts that looked at the plan before it went into effect. If any of those courts thought the plan was improper or deficient, they could have paused it or rejected it and they did not.

To quote another poster: Equitable mootness is the idea that so much has happened since plan confirmation in reliance on effectiveness of the plan - property being bought and sold, money being spent, claims being processed, paid and settled, etc. - that it would be impossible to unwind it all. Therefore, the court simply dismisses the appeals and lets the confirmed plan stay in place.

The BSA and others filed their briefs to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. They also moved to dismiss the appeals outright on the basis of equitable mootness and that motion is attached. BSA MTD Appeal.pdf

Here’s the 18-page ruling. Order Denying Renewed Stay Motions.pdf

In the U.S. District Court (Delaware), D&V/Lujan filed their motions for a stay pending appeal and stay of the plan on Friday 8/18. For whatever reason, Omni hasn't made them available. Perhaps Omni is winding down now that the plan is effective. Anyway, Judge Andrews has set a briefing schedule. Briefs opposing the D&V/Lujan motions for a stay pending appeal and stay of the plan are due 9/1. Replies are due 9/8.

This was your first problem. It is the Council's prerogative to enter into agreements with outside organizations to become Charter Orgs. The troop's unit committee should not have done this without consulting with the Council first and obtaining the Council's blessing. I also question whether the Lutheran Church leadership fully understands the responsibilities associated with being a Charter Org, since (per your description) it is seemingly handing out signatures on paperwork to multiple units. If I'm reading this correctly (and the facts as presented are not entirely clear), this proposed solution would have the Lutheran Church being the Charter Org for two troops, one of which would be meeting at the Methodist Church that no longer wishes to be a Charter Org? I can see why the Council would not be thrilled about the Lutheran Church having responsibility for two apparently unrelated troops (this apparently isn't just a boy troop / girl troop pairing, which would likely be fine). There clearly are issues here and it seems that a meeting with the Council leadership is long overdue. At that meeting, you all need to agree on the unit's future either as a Council-chartered unit or with a Charter Org that is acceptable to the Council.

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals has denied the stay motions "without prejudice to filing renewed stay motions in the District Court." They need to take it up with Judge Andrews in the Delaware District Court before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals will consider it.

The settling insurers had to pay the money into escrow, where the funds will be invested until paid over to the Settlement Trust. If the market does well, the survivors will benefit from it.

This was not easy to find but here it goes... 1) Hartford is paying a total of $787 million of which $137 million was payable on the Effective Date. See Docket 8816, page 29. 2) Century is paying a total of $800 million of which $50 million was payable on the Effective Date. See Docket 8907, page 6. 3) Zurich is paying $52.5 million. As best as I can tell, none of it is payable until appeals are resolved. See Docket 8907, page 158. 4) Clarendon is paying a total of $16.5 million of which $2.871 million was payable on the Effective Date. See Docket 8907, page 227. The above is what the insurers were contractually obligated to pay on the Effective Date with the rest coming due when all appeals are resolved. It seems they are permitted to pay more earlier at their option.

Respectfully, I must strongly disagree with your assessment of Purdue's impact on the BSA plan. There is a HUGE difference between BSA and Purdue, which is that BSA's plan has already gone into effect. Purdue's plan is now stayed and cannot go into effect, if at all, until after SCOTUS rules on the validity of non-consensual third-party releases. (I agree June '24 is the likely timeframe for that decision.) We are in unchartered territory here, and so a lot of permutations are possible. BSA Plan Supporters are not happy to see SCOTUS reviewing nonconsensual third-party releases. That said, IMHO, the most likely outcome is that the Third Circuit receives all briefs and decides that the appeals of Lujan, D&V, Certain Insurers, etc. are equitably moot. Briefing has already begun and so it seems like the Third Circuit ruling could come before a SCOTUS ruling in June '24, but who knows. Therefore, even if there was reversible error in the BSA Plan approvals, the Third Circuit will likely find that it is powerless to reverse those errors because the plan has already gone into effect. BSA is now a reorganized debtor and lots of assets have been paid to the Settlement Trustee in exchange for the third-party releases (largely by insurers and Local Councils). The Settlement Trustee has already started incurring substantial operating expenses against those assets, and might very well start paying at least the expedited $3500 claims before either the Third Circuit or SCOTUS issues any rulings. There are a lot of other aspects of the plan which also depended (at least indirectly) upon the third-party releases. It would be virtually impossible for an appeals court to unscramble that egg. So even if SCOTUS ultimately finds in Purdue that nonconsensual third-party releases are not permissible, it does not follow that BSA's plan will be imperiled or affected by that ruling. Today, and certainly by June '24, it will be a practical impossibility to reverse the implementation of BSA's plan of reorganization. When Plan Supporters file their Third Circuit briefs in the relative near future, you can expect to see a lot of arguments like the above under the heading of equitable mootness. By the way, equitable mootness is virtually certain NOT to be in issue in Purdue. Because of the SCOTUS decision to stay the Purdue plan pending SCOTUS's ruling, the Purdue plan will not go into effect before SCOTUS rules, and equitable mootness will not be at issue. So the Third Circuit is going to apply existing law on equitable mootness, which as I understand tend to favor overruling the various appeals.

I'd be a little surprised if councils just "waited until people forgot" to then sell land with transfer restrictions. Buyers and their title insurers generally make sure they are getting good title before paying real money for land. But it is common for councils to try and transfer such land and, if necessary, to seek court approval under what is known as the "cy pres" doctrine. I've run into that on several occasions. People tend to donate small, low-value parcels to councils and impose transfer restrictions on them. It becomes a burden rather than a benefit, so it often makes sense to get rid of the land via sale or donation to a land trust, for example.

I disagree. Every council is different, and I'm sure all councils can do better. However, council employees are necessary to train leaders, implement programs, and supervise and support units. They do not work for free. Personally I'd rather pay a fee than deal with Friends of Scouting presentations.

This is happening more and more. Councils are moving towards a user-fee model because Friends of Scouting / other fundraising isn't pulling in the dollars that are needed.

Full press release from BSA on emergence from bankruptcy, including hiring of Mr. Pounder as YP executive: https://www.scoutingnewsroom.org/press-releases/the-boy-scouts-of-america-bsa-announces-confirmation-of-plan-of-reorganization-and-emergence-from-chapter-11-bankruptcy-to-equitably-compensate-survivors-while-ensuring-scouting-continues-across-the/

BSA filed a Notice of the Effective Date in the bankruptcy court. It is over. BSA has emerged from bankruptcy. The Settlement Trust can begin its work. Edit to include link to notice: https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/5bdd7d51-2fcc-451e-8ed1-4ac76fc4341e_11119.pdf

Lots of movement in the District and Circuit Courts today. First, Judge Andrews denied the stay motions. In the Third Circuit, stay motions were filed by the Lujan & D&V claimants, and the Certain Insurers. BSA & plan supporters filed opposition briefs almost immediately. Later in the day, a single judge of the Third Circuit entered a temporary stay “… for the sole purpose of allowing the Court an opportunity to review the requests for a stay pending appeal. Nothing herein constitutes a ruling about the merits or a need for more than a temporary stay.” Now we wait for the Third Circuit to rule on the stay requests in the coming days (weeks?). If stay motions are denied, expect the plan to go effective & BSA to emerge from Chapter 11 shortly after.

It is not clear to me whether the plan will "go effective" on Wed. 4/12 if a request for a stay is pending to the Third Circuit but has not been ruled upon. I thought David Moulton suggested at the Town Hall (but memory may be failing me) that even the mere pendency of a stay request would delay the effective date for a little while, even if no court has actually ordered a stay. That would make sense because by its terms, the plan cannot go effective while a stay request is pending unless all of the plan supporters & settling parties agree. That's in Art. IX.B(1)(c) of the plan (a condition precedent to the effective date is that "no request for a stay of the occurrence of the Effective Date shall be pending"). All of the relevant parties would have to agree for the plan to "go effective" while a stay request is pending and that includes includes Hartford, Century, JP Morgan, etc. In other words, the effective date will likely be delayed until the Third Circuit denies all stay requests, assuming that are eventually denied. Of course, if it grants a stay (or if the District Court does), then the effective date will be delayed for a long time.

At the end of the insurer's reply brief, they said something interesting. "Because their appellate rights are at risk, the Certain Insurers respectfully state that, absent a stay, notices of appeal will be filed no later than 12:00 pm ET on Monday, April 10, followed by an expedited stay relief request thereafter in the Third Circuit." Essentially, they are saying that because it is so time sensitive, they can't wait forever for Judge Andrews to rule on the stay requests. Presumably this is headed for the Third Circuit today barring a ruling in the next few minutes/hours. Of course it's anyone's guess how quickly the Third Circuit will act.....