Over 14K Boy Scout Sex Abuse Survivors Vote Against Bankruptcy Settlement Plan

The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) announced that it failed to get enough votes to pass its plan of reorganization, in which it laid out a settlement proposal to resolve a wave of childhood sexual abuse lawsuits against it.

According their press release, the BSA’s plan of reorganization proposed the creation of a global settlement fund of about $2.4 billion. Under the proposed plan, three insurance companies would have contributed about $1.75 billion each, with BSA local councils contributing about $640 million. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would pitch in another $250 million for claims that also name the church as a defendant.

Despite the fact that it would ring in as the “largest sexual abuse settlement ever on an aggregate level,” per the press release, BSA child sex abuse survivor recoveries would be far less than the average. If the plan had been approved, each BSA survivor would be compensated about $31,000. For reference, the average compensation paid out to survivors in the recent litigation against USA Gymnastics was about $700,000 each.

More than 14,000 individual BSA survivors voted against the BSA’s proposed reorganization plan.

The Zalkin Law Firm, led by Attorney Irwin Zalkin, is representing almost 150 child sex abuse survivors in the BSA bankruptcy case.

Attorney Zalkin has over 20 years of experience in sex abuse litigation, and he has been working without rest to ensure that the BSA’s proposed plan would not be approved. Given the trauma his clients have experienced, he refuses to accept anything less than what they deserve.

“We hope the BSA and the lawyers who supported this plan will take this result as sending a message that the plan they proposed was fundamentally unacceptable to a large bloc of survivors,” Attorney Zalkin said in a press release. “There are probably some bruised feelings as a result of this process, but people need to get over that. We have been focused since day one on working to achieve a plan that provides fair compensation for all survivors who experienced sexual abuse in the Boy Scouts. We will be working with the other parties in the case to bring about that outcome.”

Please read our press release to learn more.

Fighting for Survivors from Coast to Coast

With offices in California and New York, The Zalkin Law Firm advocates for survivors nationwide. Attorney Zalkin, our firm’s founder, has played a key role in negotiating numerous global settlements to benefit survivors of sexual assault and abuse. No case is too complex for our boy scout sex abuse attorney or law firm. To date, we have taken on countless abusers and the powerful institutions that protected them, such as the Catholic Church, Jehovah's Witnesses, and colleges and universities.

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