A $2.4 billion bankruptcy plan for the Boy Scouts of America has been upheld by a federal judge.
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The plan would let the Texas organization keep operating while it compensates tens of thousands of men who say they were sexually abused as children while involved in Scouting.
The ruling released Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Delaware rejected arguments that the bankruptcy plan wasn’t proposed in good faith and improperly strips insurers and survivors of their rights.
More than 80,000 men have filed claims saying they were abused as children by troop leaders around the country. Plan opponents say the staggering number of claims, when combined with other factors, suggest the bankruptcy process was manipulated.
Judge Richard Andrews said he found no fault with the plan’s initial approval by a federal bankruptcy judge in September, although he agreed with the previous judge that it was “an extraordinary case by any measure.”
“The appellants have failed to put forth evidence that would demonstrate clear error in the bankruptcy court’s careful findings of facts,” the judge wrote.
Under the plan which the Boy Scouts describe as a “carefully calibrated compromise” the organization itself would contribute less than 10% of the proposed settlement fund.
The local Boy Scout councils, which run day-to-day operations for troops, offered to contribute at least $515 million in cash and property, conditioned on certain protections for local troop sponsoring organizations, including religious entities, civic associations and community groups.
The bulk of the compensation fund would come from the Boy Scouts’ two largest insurers, Century Indemnity and The Hartford, which reached settlements calling for them to contribute $800 million and $787 million, respectively. Other insurers agreed to contribute about $69 million. ■
The main thing making weather headlines Friday and into the weekend will be the widespread coverage of showers and thunderstorms across much of the central and eastern U.S., with a particular focus across southeast Texas, the Mid-South, and portions of Virginia.