Oct 3 (Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Tuesday declined to stop the Boy Scouts of America’s $2.46 billion abuse settlement from moving forward, rejecting calls to put the deal on hold.
The Boy Scouts of America’s settlement, meant to compensate more than 80,000 men who said they were abused as children by troop leaders, is being appealed by about 140 abuse claimants and a minority group of the organization’s insurers who oppose the deal. They had argued that the settlement should be paused because an upcoming United States Supreme Court case involving Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy could upend a key feature of the settlement — legal protections for non-bankrupt organizations such as churches that co-sponsored Scouting programs.
But U.S. District Judge Richard Andrews in Delaware denied that request Tuesday, saying that stopping the settlement in its tracks would be both impractical and unfair to the many people and organizations relying on it to resolve abuse claims.
The Boy Scouts organization, unlike Purdue, has already emerged from bankruptcy. Stopping the organization’s bankruptcy settlement now would put 99.8% of Boy Scouts abuse claims “back into limbo” instead of moving them toward compensation, Andrews wrote. – Boy Scouts abuse settlement shouldn’t wait on US Supreme Court’s Purdue appeal – judge By Dietrich Knauth
