Justice Alito Pauses Boys Scouts Abuse Settlement

The Supreme Court has halted the Boy Scouts of America's $2.46 BILLION abuse claim settlement.

Well, at least one of the Supreme Court Justices stopped it:

Samuel Alito.

The expensive settlement came about after decades of sexual abuse allegations from former members of the organization.

Alito issued the stay "pending further order of the undersigned or of the Court."

This gives the Supreme Court additional time to decide what to do with the case after a request by 144 abuse claimants seeking to block the settlement from moving forward.

While the 144 abuse claimants who want the settlement halted are a small portion of the 82,000 people who filed claims for payment in the Boy Scouts of America bankruptcy settlement.

The 144 are arguing that the Boy Scouts having to pay and declare bankruptcy simply isn't justice, because it protects the individuals, churches, schools, and criminals who actually committed the crimes.

The Boy Scouts doesn't seem to think this will change the eventual outcome.

"This is an administrative stay only and is not a decision on the merits of the plaintiffs’ application for a stay of the plan," a statement explained, adding:

As BSA’s brief in opposition to the stay application explained to the Court, the BSA plan has already been effective for ten months and will fully compensate all Scouting-abuse survivors. Staying that plan now would inflict severe harm on both the Scouting movement and Scouting-abuse survivors, many of whom have already waited decades for compensation and emotional closure.

We look forward to the Court’s ruling soon on the stay application. We hope the Court will swiftly deny the application and permit the BSA plan’s settlement trustee to resume her work compensating survivors.

This is a complicated issue, because we have to be able to trust that many Boy Scout leaders were doing the best that they could to raise fine young men.

Unfortunately, bad people were able to utilize the program to create at least 82,000 instances of injustice.

Who's at fault here?

The Boy Scouts organization for not protecting kids or the criminals who actually committed the abuse?

Where do the crimes end and the coverup begin?

It's hard to tell, and this seems to be one of those situations where only time will tell.

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