Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Friday temporarily halted the Boy Scouts of America's $2.46 billion settlement of decades of sex abuse claims, which is being appealed by a group of 144 abuse claimants, Reuters reported. Alito's brief order freezing the settlement gives the court more time to decide a Feb. 9 request by these abuse claimants to block the settlement from moving forward. They contend the deal unlawfully stops them from pursuing lawsuits against organizations that are not bankrupt, such as churches that ran scouting programs, local Boy Scouts councils and insurers that provided coverage to the Boy Scouts organization. Justice Alito stepped in to halt the settlement because he handles certain requests involving cases from a group of states including Delaware, where the Boy Scouts matter was decided. The settlement involves more than 82,000 men who have said they were abused as children by troop leaders while in the Boy Scouts. Doug Kennedy, an abuse survivor who co-led the official committee representing abuse claimants in the bankruptcy, called the delay a "horrible" result. Survivors have already waited for decades for their abuse to be addressed, and 86% of abuse survivors voted to support the Boy Scouts settlement in bankruptcy court, Kennedy said. The trustee in charge of administering the Boy Scouts settlement, retired bankruptcy judge Barbara Houser, said Alito's order will suspend all work on the settlement, including evaluating claims and mailing checks to abuse survivors. The settlement trust has already paid nearly $8 million to more than 3,000 men. The Boy Scouts of America noted that Alito's order was only a short-term measure and said that it hopes the Supreme Court will swiftly deny the request for a longer pause, which would "inflict severe harm on both the Scouting movement and Scouting-abuse survivors."
