Legal News

Man Awarded $1.4 Million in Boy-Scouts Abuse Case

By Ashby Jones

A jury in Portland, Ore., on Tuesday found that the Boy Scouts were negligent and awarded $1.4 million to a man who was sexually abused as a Scout in the 1980s. Click here for the story from the Oregonian; here for the AP story; here for an earlier LB item on the case.

The jury on Tuesday also decided that the Scouts organization was liable for punitive damages that will be decided in a separate phase of the trial.

In a statement on its Web site, the Scouts said they plan to appeal. “We are gravely disappointed with the verdict,” read the statement. “We believe that the allegations made against our youth protection efforts are not valid. . . . We are saddened by what happened to the plaintiff. The actions of the man who committed these crimes do not represent the values and ideals of the Boy Scouts of America.”

Lawyers for Kerry Lewis, 38, the victim who filed the lawsuit, argued the Boy Scouts organization was reckless for allowing former assistant Scoutmaster Timur Dykes to continue to associate with the victim’s Scout troop after Dykes acknowledged to a bishop for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints early in 1983 that he had molested 17 Boy Scouts.

The church was the charter organization for an estimated third to one half of the Boy Scout troops in the nation in the 1980s. The church settled its portion of the Portland case before trial, but the jury ordered it to pay 25 percent of the $1.4 million in noneconomic damages, or $350,000. The Boy Scouts of America must pay 60 percent, or $840,000, while its Cascade Pacific Council must pay 15 percent, or $210,000.

Dykes was later convicted three times of various abuse charges involving boys and served time in prison. Shortly before trial, he admitted in a deposition to abusing Lewis.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on April 13, 2010 (boomark / email).