The Boy Scouts of America said it now expected it will likely be able to pay in full on the sex-abuse claims that drove it to bankruptcy based on new and lower estimates of how much it owes abuse victims, the Wall Street Journal reported. The youth group yesterday said that it now projected the total value of claims eligible for payouts to be roughly $3 billion, the midpoint in a range of $2.4 billion to $3.6 billion. The Boy Scouts’s trust for settling with 82,200 abuse victims grew recently to at least $2.69 billion with contributions from the youth group, its insurers, local councils and others. The Irving, Texas-based youth group said the trust could grow further and would cover all the eligible claims in full. “Survivors of abuse will be paid in full” with the chapter 11 reorganization plan, the Boy Scouts said in a filing Tuesday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. Facing a slew of sexual-abuse lawsuits, the Boy Scouts filed for bankruptcy in February 2020. The youth group, which has apologized to the victims, says new calculations showed its liability wasn’t nearly as bad as it thought. Critics remained skeptical about the proposed reorganization, which will be debated at a hearing scheduled to begin in late February.
