The Boy Scouts of America said on Tuesday it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy amid a flood of lawsuits over allegations of child sexual abuse stretching back decades.
Gavino Garay has more.
Boy Scouts files for bankruptcy after abuse allegations
The Boy Scouts of America said on Tuesday it has filed for bankruptcy amid a wave of lawsuits over child sexual abuse allegations that go back decades.
A representative of hundreds of men who claim they were abused as scouts told Reuters the bankruptcy filing is a result of decades of quote "concealing" abuse by the organization.
The bankruptcy will allow the organization to bring all of the lawsuits into one court, rather than using its funds to fight each case.
The Boy Scouts of America has been overwhelmed by hundreds of claims after several states, including New York, removed legal hurdles that had barred people from suing over old allegations of child sex abuse.
A similar bankruptcy strategy to resolve sex abuse lawsuits has been used by more than 20 Catholic dioceses as well as USA Gymnastics.
The Boy Scouts in a statement said quote: "we can live up to our social and moral responsibility to fairly compensate victims."