BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) - Two men are suing the Boy Scouts of America and the Montana Council alleging they were sexually abused by scout leaders who were not adequately supervised.
The lawsuits, filed Tuesday in Great Falls, allege the Boy Scouts failed to implement and enforce child protection policies and failed to vet troop leaders despite previous abuse that had been reported to the organization, The Billings Gazette reports.
“The Boy Scouts had a duty to protect the children in its program from the known danger of child molesters,” said Gilion Dumas with the law firm Dumas & Vaughn, based in Portland, Oregon. “Instead, BSA put the reputation of the program and its adult scout leaders before children’s safety.”
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Boy Scouts of America said: “We are outraged that there have been times when individuals took advantage of our program to abuse innocent children.”
The organization said it believes victims, pays for their counseling and encourages them to come forward. The Montana Council responded with the same statement.
One man reported his abuse began in 1968, the other in 1980.
The Montana lawsuits are possible after the 2019 Legislature extended the statute of limitations for filing civil lawsuits over sexual abuse and opened a one-year window of opportunity, that ends in May, to file such lawsuits if the statute of limitations had otherwise expired.
One victim said he was sexually abused while in the Boy Scouts in Hamilton from 1968 until he quit the organization in 1971. He said he reported the abuse to another troop leader in 1970, but no action was taken.
“This young scout told a trusted scout leader that his scoutmaster was sexually abusing him, and the Boy Scouts did nothing to remove the man from scouting, report him to law enforcement or even limit his access to children,” said attorney Ashley Vaughn.
The man remained a scout leader until 1984 and he received an award for distinguished service, the lawsuit states.
The second lawsuit alleges sexual abuse that took place in Great Falls from 1980 to 1985. It does not say how the abuse stopped.
The lawsuits allege the Boy Scouts were aware of abuse and attempted to track those it considered “ineligible volunteers,” but concealed from potential members and their families the organization’s knowledge of sexual abuse.
Nationally, the organization is seeing a growing wave of lawsuits, in part due to new laws that are extending statutes of limitations for filing civil lawsuits over childhood sexual abuse.
In August, the organization said it was considering “all options available so we can live up to our social and moral responsibility to fairly compensate victims who suffered abuse during their time in scouting.”
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Information from: The Billings Gazette, http://www.billingsgazette.com
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