By Dietrich Knauth
(Reuters) – U.S. 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.
Alito’s brief order freezing the settlement gives the court more time to decide a Feb. 9 request by the abuse claimants to block the settlement from moving forward. Their request contended that 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.
The Supreme Court is already considering whether U.S. bankruptcy courts are allowed to wipe away legal claims against non-bankrupt people and organizations in an appeal of OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy.
In that case, the court will decide whether the company’s owners, members of the wealthy Sackler family, can receive immunity in exchange for paying up to $6 billion to settle thousands of lawsuits over the company’s allegedly misleading marketing of its powerful pain medication.
(Reporting by Andrew Chung and Dietrich Knauth; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
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