Chapter 11 Announced - Part 4 Revised Plan

[ThenNow]

13 hours ago, CynicalScouter said:

provided, however,the Settlement Trustee will weigh the strength of any relevant evidence submitted by the Abuse Claimant to determine whether the statute of limitations could be tolled under applicable law based on a Protected Party’s conduct, and may apply a higher Scaling Factor if such evidence demonstrates to the Settlement Trustee that tolling would be appropriate under applicable state law; 

If the statute was tolled, it is a live claim and it should be in the “open state” bucket. This is some Great and Powerful Oz legal fudging. A fight over tolling, based on fraudulent concealment for example, is no small matter to determine without a full hearing. 

Edited June 30, 2021 by ThenNow

[CynicalScouter]

21 minutes ago, ThenNow said:

A fight over tolling, based on fraudulent concealment for example, is no small matter to determine without a full hearing. 

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.

[qwazse]

So, there is an expectation that thousands of claims won't be verifiable. Stacked against the 85,000 submitted, that seems unsurprising to me. It also seems likely that some "verifiable" claims will later be found to be fraudulent. (E.g., a claimant is later caught on record saying he outright lied -- for whatever reason.) We all hope there will be very few of those.

Will the trust be able to sue? File criminal charges?

Or, does that responsibility fall to another party?

[CynicalScouter]

1 hour ago, qwazse said:

Will the trust be able to sue? File criminal charges?

Or, does that responsibility fall to another party?

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.

Quote

Trust Claim Submissions must be signed under the pains and penalties of perjury and to the extent of applicable law, the submission of a fraudulent Trust Claim Submission may violate the criminal laws of the United States, including the criminal provisions applicable to Bankruptcy Crimes, 18 U.S.C. § 152, and may subject those responsible to criminal prosecution in the Federal Courts.

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%.

1 hour ago, qwazse said:

So, there is an expectation that thousands of claims won't be verifiable

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.

Edited June 30, 2021 by CynicalScouter

[CynicalScouter]

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.

 

 

Edited June 30, 2021 by CynicalScouter

[Eagle1993]

48 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said:

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.

 

 

Short summary ... they will NOT run out of cash by September, or October or even early 2022.  

I think they are showing $3.16M of income from HA bases; however, it is not clear the expenses.

[CynicalScouter]

12 minutes ago, Eagle1993 said:

I think they are showing $3.16M of income from HA bases; however, it is not clear the expenses.

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

 

Edited June 30, 2021 by CynicalScouter

[CynicalScouter]

15 minutes ago, Eagle1993 said:

Short summary ... they will NOT run out of cash by September, or October or even early 2022.  

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.

[Eagle1993]

30 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said:

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.

They are in Ch11 .. nothing is optimal.  They said they would be out of cash and may have to liquidate if they don't exit by end of summer.  Take a look at the cash flow again.  They only lost $1.76M in cash before the $20M (last year they lost over $5M and had far less bankruptcy expenses ... so they are managing cash better in 2021 than 2020).  They have $72M cash right now.   

In 2020 they burned through $42M in June - August ...  lets assume the same cash burn.  Leaves them with $30M in September with no further transfers from their endowment.  In 2020 they were actually ok on cash September through end of year (and that was a bad year for registrations).  

I have a hard time seeing them burn $72M+ in cash June - August.

[DavidLeeLambert]

On 6/29/2021 at 11:22 AM, RobertCalifornia said:

[W]hy are so many claimants still not assigned to a state or council? It is not difficult to ascertain if a person lived in X town or attended X camp in X year, there is a high probability that person was in X council. 

As you note, the TCC mentioned at an earlier town hall that there were at least some cases where a claimant had left the council blank, and more or less stated the CO in the narrative for the corresponding field, and it had been coded as "Unknown" in the file they received. The same could have happened on a few forms for the council.

And not all councils are statewide. Some are, or were, only a single city, or only a few counties. When I was a boy, I was part of the Detroit Area Council based on the address of the CO when it first registered the unit... but then the CO moved and met at a different location, which would have been in a different council. I don't know whether the unit actually changed councils, either while I was a Scout in it or afterward. I suspect not, because it still had the same unit-number in 2019. (Although the two councils eventually merged, so either way BSA would code a claim against that unit as Michigan Crossroads Council today.)

But it shouldn't be hard to file a new copy of just that one page of the claim form to specify a CO and a Council. The number of "no Council" claims hasn't changed much since the TCC called for amendments at the first Town Hall, which suggests that there is a fraction of claimants that just can't provide that information at all.

I compared the list of claim numbers from one of Century's objections (a batch of "same-signature claims) to some information shared by the TCC, and about 90% of those claims still did 't have Council information, a few months later.

So it seems plausible that a significant fraction of claimants are "lying low" and doing nothing to supplement or clarify their claims.

On 6/29/2021 at 11:22 AM, RobertCalifornia said:

I just wonder how good the national records are for the past.

National does not have any rosters from before 1999, when they turned on the current registration database. Many of the councils have produced rosters for claimants who claimed against them. A few councils, perhaps a dozen-odd or so, including Michigan Crossroads, have produced no rosters... perhaps because they're playing hardball in the negotiations, or perhaps because they actually don't have any pre-1999 youth records (lost during council moves/consolidations, lost due to natural disaster, destroyed pursuant to an interpretation of state privacy law, destroyed pursuant to a duly-approved document retention policy... the reasons could be innocent, nefarious, or open to dispute.)

On 6/29/2021 at 11:22 AM, RobertCalifornia said:

We know there are people that participated in scouting, yet because mom did not sign the form or send money...that scout never was registered. 

When the records for a certain unit ended up in my hands, I found a mostly-complete application form for a boy, about 8 or 10 years earlier, who I did not know. So I'll agree that a few claimants might plausibly argue that that could have happened in their case.

There are also IVF entries where a volunteer was kept "off the books" for anywhere from a few months to several years, and some units have notoriously kept unofficial lists of Merit Badge counselors, and in these very forums there was a hue and cry when the new background-check authorization was added to the application form.

I don't know how many complete units were "off the books", or how many units kept certain boys or leaders "off the books" for an extended time. In some cases that could indeed have been part of the abuser's scheme. But if a boy's mother actually never signed the form and never paid anything, that is arguably a factor that would lessen, if not completely eliminate, BSA's or the Local Council's liability.

 

Same-signature claimants analysis.pdf

[mrjohns2]

15 minutes ago, Eagle1993 said:

Leaves them with $30M in September with no further transfers from their endowment.  In 2020 they were actually ok on cash September through end of year (a

That means they would be down to $10M without the infusion. Basically, broken no? 

[ThenNow]

On 6/29/2021 at 12:28 PM, johnsch322 said:

Here in California to file a lawsuit if over a certain age you need a psychiatrist to evaluate you and render an opinion if he believes it was true

I assume there is a form or required structure to that opinion. Is it an affidavit? Where might I find the form or requirements for the substance of the psychiatrist’s opinion? I’d love to review it. Thanks very much.

[johnsch322]

6 minutes ago, ThenNow said:

I assume there is a form or required structure to that opinion. Is it an affidavit? Where might I find the form or requirements for the substance of the psychiatrist’s opinion? I’d love to review it. Thanks very much.

I believe an affidavit. It was about a 1.5 hour session with the psychologist not sure if he was following a form.  It didn't fee like he was.  

[ThenNow]

3 minutes ago, johnsch322 said:

I believe an affidavit. It was about a 1.5 hour session with the psychologist not sure if he was following a form.  It didn't fee like he was.  

Gotcha. Thanks. Without disclosing your details, of course, what was the nature of the interview and who selected the psychiatrist? Was it in person of virtual? 

[johnsch322]

2 minutes ago, ThenNow said:

Gotcha. Thanks. Without disclosing your details, of course, what was the nature of the interview and who selected the psychiatrist? Was it in person of virtual? 

The psychiatrist was associated with my lawyer and it was virtual. The interview was about the abuse, my life since, impacts on my life, and he spent time on present mental state.