Personal Injury Law

Boy Scouts of America paid 1.4 million in sexual abuse case

Boy Scouts of America is an organization across the country that teaches young boys and men wilderness skills, life skills, and teaches them how to be responsible people that can have fun and do the right thing. Unfortunately, in the case involving Kerry Lewis who was formerly from Portland, Oregon, the Boys Scouts of America failed to protect him from and even allowed the former assistant Scoutmaster Timur Dykes to keep in contact with his troop after Dykes had admitted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints back in 1983 that he molested seventeen boy scouts. Dykes was convicted three times of various sexual abuse charges involved with the boy scouts and had admitted to abusing Lewis. Due to their failure to act and their reckless actions involving this case, the Boy Scouts of America must pay $840,000 or sixty percent of the 1.4 million and the Cascade Pacific Council will pay fifteen percent or $210,000 and finally, the church already paid its portion of $350,000.

The spokesman for the Boy Scouts, Deron Smith, said, ?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?.

There are still nine other claims pending against the Boy Scouts of America and a separate trial to help determine if the organization will owe $25 million in punitive damages. The Oregon Supreme Court also released in February more than 1,000 files the Scouts kept on alleged pedophiles from 1965- mid 1984 that were used in this trial.

Full post as published by Tennessee Law Blog on April 18, 2010 (boomark / email).