Trial set to consider approval of Boy Scouts bankruptcy plan

DOVER, Del. (AP) — More than two years after the Boy Scouts of America sought bankruptcy protection amid an onslaught of child sex abuse allegations, a judge will determine whether to confirm its proposed reorganization plan in a trial beginning Monday.

The trial in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware is expected to stretch over several weeks as attorneys and witnesses battle over a host of complex issues, including insurance rights, liability releases, the value of some 80,000 child sex abuse claims and how such a huge number of claims came to be filed.

The Boy Scouts, based in Irving, Texas, sought bankruptcy protection in February 2020 in an effort to halt hundreds of individual lawsuits and create a fund for men who say they were sexually abused as children involved in Scouting. Although the organization faced 275 lawsuits at the time, it found itself the subject of more than 82,000 sexual abuse claims in the bankruptcy case.

The reorganization plan calls for the Boys Scouts and its roughly 250 local councils to contribute up to $786 million in cash and property and assign certain insurance rights to a fund for abuse claimants. In return, the BSA and councils would be released from further liability.

The BSA’s two largest insurers, Century Indemnity Co. and The Hartford, would contribute $800 million and $787 million, respectively, into the compensation fund. Other insurers have agreed to contribute about $69 million. The organization’s former largest troop sponsor, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon church, has agreed to contribute $250 million for abuse claims involving the church. Congregations affiliated with the United Methodist Church have agreed to contribute $30 million.

The troop-sponsoring organizations and settling insurers also would be released from further...