Boy Scouts Claimants Seek $103 Billion in Child Sex Abuse Claims

In a new development in the Boy Scouts of America bankruptcy proceedings in Dover, Delaware, the committee representing child sex abuse victims has sought the court’s permission to “file its own reorganization plan” for the Boy Scouts. The Tort Claimants Committee argued in a motion filed last week that the reorganization plan proposed by the Boy Scouts “falls woefully short of fairly compensating abuse victims while shielding local Boy Scouts councils and sponsoring organizations from liability,” according to the Associated Press.

In lieu of the Boy Scouts’ plan, the Tort Claimants Committee proposes “a $300 million contribution by local councils to a fund for victims, about $115 million in cash and noninsurance assets from the BSA, and the assignment of BSA and local council insurance policies,” the AP reports. This plan would also release 253 local Boy Scouts councils and “thousands of sponsoring organizations” from any additional liability.

The Torts Claimant Committee has also made an offer to the Boy Scouts to settle the approximately 84,000 child sex abuse claims against the organization. It made an “extremely conservative” valuation of those claims at approximately $103 billion, according to the AP, pointing out that “average claim value of $811,215 is less than the average of $1.2 million per claim that the University of Southern California agreed to pay last month in an $852 million settlement” with 700 women who accused a campus gynecologist of abuse.

Attorneys for the Tort Claimants Committee also noted that their proposed reorganization plan, unlike the Boy Scouts’, “will not include nonconsensual third-party releases from liability for the local councils and sponsoring organizations.” The TCC’s reorganization plan would provide for either it or the settlement trust to negotiate releases. The attorneys also argued that local councils and sponsoring organizations should not be released from liability “the Boy Scouts and local councils want to rely on insurance carriers to provide the bulk of compensation for abuse victims.” In contrast, attorneys for the Boy Scouts have responded that the filing of a “competing” reorganization plan would impede the effort “to negotiate and implement a global resolution of abuse claims” and would further lead to additional, “boundless” lawsuits.

More information about the latest developments in the child sex abuse claims against the Boy Scouts is available via the Associated Press

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