Boy Scouts of America.Photo: Tom Pennington/Getty
The Boy Scouts of America’s settlement offer to the more than 82,000 boys and men who were sexually abused as scouts recently increased, PEOPLE confirms.
On Monday, theCoalition of Abused Scouts for Justiceannounced that it reached a settlement agreement with another one of the Boy Scouts of America’s (BSA) primary insurers, Century Indemnity Co., and its affiliated companies for $800 million, according to arelease from the Coalition.
The amount would bring the total compensation fund to more than $2.6 billion, making it the largest sexual abuse settlement fund in history in total, according to the Coalition, though survivors who oppose the settlement point out that other settlements have paid out far more money per victim.
The BSA said in a statement: “This is an extremely important step forward in the BSA’s efforts to equitably compensate survivors, and our hope is that this will lead to further settlement agreements from other parties.”
Faced with a deluge of lawsuits from sex abuse survivors who sued the nation’s largest youth organization for failing to protect them from predators, the BSA filed for bankruptcy in 2020.
George Frey/Getty
Survivors have until Dec. 28 to vote on whether to approve the $2.6 billion offer, which will release Century Indemnity and other insurers from further liability for abuse claims.
It also includes a massive reorganization plan designed, in part, to put in place safeguards against abuse.
After the vote, a U.S. Bankruptcy Judge in Delaware will decide in January whether to approve the offer.
The $800 million that Century Indemnity agreed to contribute “is the result of months-long and hard-fought negotiations between Coalition attorneys and various other parties,” Coalition Co-founder Ken Rothweiler of Eisenberg, Rothweiler, Winkler, Eisenberg & Jeck, P.C., said in the release.
“We have always said that our goals in this situation are two-fold: making sure that current and future scouts are protected and building the largest compensation fund possible,” Rothweiler says. “Today was another step in the right direction.”
The additional money, the Coalition says in the release, “significantly increases the value of the BSA’s proposed plan of reorganization for survivors during the open voting period that ends December 28, 2021.”
But there remains a sizable contingent of survivors who oppose the offer.
“This changes nothing,” says Tim Kosnoff ofAbused in Scouting,an organization which represents many survivors. “Too little too late.”
“It’s a non-starter,” Kosnoff says. “Survivors are not stupid. They see gymnasts getting an average of $1 million and these men … get $33,000?”
The proposed $2.6 billion settlement in the Boy Scouts bankruptcy averages about $31,600 per victim, the AP reports.
If the offer is approved, survivors will receive different sums of settlement funds, depending on the type and length of abuse suffered and in which state where the abuse took place.
The offer, says Kosnoff, is “still pennies on the dollar. Run the dollars.”
BSA survivor Stephen Mackenzie, who was abused in the 1970s in Vermont’s Mount Norris Scout Reservation, says he is going to vote ‘no" because the amount of money many survivors will get is not enough.
“I hope people see past the large settlement numbers and realize what this means for them on an individual basis,” he says. “A lot of people will be lucky to get a few thousand dollars.”
“The mass tort lawyers are leaving billions on the table, but they don’t care because they will still make a fortune. Abuse survivors should vote to reject the BSA’s proposed plan and make their lawyers earn their legal fees.”
But John Sakowicz, a former Boy Scout from Ukiah, Calif., whose scout leader abused him, disagrees.
“My reasons for voting ‘yes’ are manifold,” he said in the Coalition release. “First, it’s a historically large settlement at more than $2.6 billion. Right now, the BSA is bleeding cash, and voting no means years of protracted litigation, individual lawsuits, several local council bankruptcies, and many survivors left with nothing. This plan is equitable to all of us, no matter how complex our case or whether it has passed the statute of limitations.
“The Coalition is focused on not making the ‘perfect’ the enemy of the good — this plan is real, it’s here, it treats all scouts fairly and provides closure.”
Coalition Co-founder Anne Andrews of Andrews & Thornton said, “Not only is the Coalition creating the biggest possible compensation fund for survivors — it’s the only fund on the table and it vanishes with a no vote.”
Will Scouts Be Safe?
As part of the reorganization, the Coalition will continue to work with the BSA on accountability and safety measures to protect scouts, Andrews said in the release.
Andrews and the Coalition want “to ensure that no child will have to endure the horrific harm and abuse our clients have suffered,” she said.
The plan will “continue to focus on protecting current and future scouts, and elevating survivor voices to the highest levels of decision-making throughout the BSA organization,” said Coalition member Adam Slater of Slater Slater Schulman LLP.
But some argue that the reorganization plan doesn’t go far enough to protect children.
“Is the organization safe for youth today?” says Michael Johnson, former National Youth Protection Director for the BSA who left the organization in 2020 because he objected to the way scouts’ safety was handled. “No, it isn’t.”
In its reply to PEOPLE, the BSA said, “We want to ensure you Scouting is safer than ever before” and that it “is currently in the process of evaluating the current 72-hour rule.”
Will the Plan Give Survivors Closure?
Gregory Nowicki, an Eagle Scout from Lackawanna, N.Y., is voting yes for the plan, saying it will give him and others closure.
“To me, supporting this plan means closure for everybody,” he said in the release. “We’ve had decades of holding in things, and this entire experience is about realizing it wasn’t just you. You’re not alone. This allows us to close a chapter, it allows scouting to survive and move forward in the right direction.
“A no vote will delay this process five, ten, or more years, and many survivors are beyond the statutes of limitation and would be left in the dark. What I care about is closure for everybody, and a ‘yes’ vote allows that to happen in the quickest possible way.”
“Any current offer belittles the trauma and subsequent pain their victims have been forced to live with most of their lives.
“Furthermore, I will not support any plan that does not include the full release of all perversion files that the Boy Scouts continue to hide from the public and their victims.”
Earlier this year, the Coalition announced settlements with the Hartford Financial Services Group, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and a group of more than 250 Local BSA Councils.
Negotiations with other insurers are ongoing.
source: people.com
