[Ansteorra] Lawsuit, Children, Liability

[L T]

I think that this is the first time I've seen anything that you've written that I agree 100% with.

Excellent and sallient,

regards,

Lorraine DeerSlayer



________________________________
 From: Rose <rose_welch at yahoo.com>
To: Ansteorra <ansteorra at lists.ansteorra.org> 
Sent: Tuesday, February 7, 2012 5:35 PM
Subject: [Ansteorra] Lawsuit, Children, Liability
 
Let's be clear about this:

This case does not revolve around an isolated incident.

This case does not revolve around a single perpetrator.

This case was not brought by a single plaintiff.

This case was brought by a group of plaintiffs, with their parents, who discovered that the SCA has a long history of abusers in leadership roles. We're not alone; this problem is familiar to every organization that deals with a vulnerable populace.

Unlike those organizations, we chose to do nothing. We didn't run background checks, we didn't require a two-deep rule, we rarely revoked memberships until a conviction was secure. We didn't even bother to send out Society announcements when these revocations occurred, a measure that may have served to keep us on our toes and would have cost us NOTHING. Long after the Boy Scouts and similar organization developed best practices to safeguard their children, we did nothing.

Even after the Schragger case, where twelve children came forward to report abuse, we made NO changes. We didn't update our policies until AFTER we were sued by six of children that Lord Ben the Steward, AKA the 'Innocent Oak', had molested. That was the point of the suit.

Do you still think that this lawsuit is about money?

This lawsuit was about forcing the SCA to adopt standard best practices, which we have done. Now that we have done so, we no longer carry the same amount of liability that we did before 2007. (And our liability insurance already went up. Some of you folks are really behind the times.)

The Innocent Oak. That is what the local populace called him and the symbol that they crafted onto items that they sold to raise funds for his defense. Even after his conviction, a reported thirty Scadians showed up to his 'Going To Prison' party to wish him farewell. Since then, there have been twenty-nine revocation and denial of membership decisions rendered by the Board of Directors for conviction of predatory crimes. Twenty-four of these have been with regard to abuse of minors.

Again, let me ask. Are you still thinking about the money?

I'm not. I'm thinking about a culture of abuse that we allowed to fester in our Society, that contributed to the molestation of at least a dozen children. Eighteen percent doesn't seem like a very large payment to rid ourselves of that particular ailment, and it is worth noting that it would have been significantly cheaper - in gold and in blood - had we simply seen to the issue when the first symptoms erupted.

Blaming the children for a lawsuit that centered around the non-actions of adults is stupid. Working to punish children in the future for an issue that was corrected in the past is even more stupid.

And that's my tuppence.

 

Lady Rose the Obnoxious
 


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Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile. ~Hippocrates
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