PORTLAND, Ore. — A jury Friday ordered the Boy Scouts of America to pay $18.5 million to a man sexually abused by a former assistant Scoutmaster in what is thought to be the largest such award against the organization.
Attorneys for Kerry Lewis had asked the jury to award at least $25 million to punish the Boy Scouts for what the jury had already agreed in the first phase of the trial was reckless and outrageous conduct.
They also noted the Boy Scouts had never apologized to Lewis, who said Friday at a news conference that the verdict shows that “big corporations can’t be above the law.”
Lewis added that an apology “would mean something to me, but I’m not expecting it.”
The jury decided April 13 that the Boy Scouts were negligent for allowing former assistant Scoutmaster Timur Dykes to associate with Scouts, including Lewis, after Dykes admitted to a Scouts official in 1983 that he had molested 17 boys.
The jury awarded Lewis $1.4 million in compensatory damages with that verdict and agreed Boy Scouts of America was liable for punitive damages to be determined in the second phase of the trial that ended Thursday. Boy Scouts officials declined to comment on details of the case because other cases are pending but issued a statement saying they maintain a “rigorous” system to screen Scout leaders.
“The Boy Scouts of America has always stood against child abuse of any kind,” the statement said.
The case was the first of six filed against the Boy Scouts in the same court in Oregon, with at least one other separate case pending. If mediation fails to settle the next cases, they also could go to trial.
Kelly Clark and Paul Mones, the attorneys for Lewis, told the jury the Boy Scouts were a nearly $1 billion corporation that could well afford punitive damages intended to deter them from similar conduct in the future.
Clark and Mones said Friday after the verdict that publicity about the case also could act as a deterrent.
“They’ve always settled. And they’re silent. No one hears because it does not see the light of day,” Mones said. “What we saw here in Portland really pulled back the covers on the Boy Scouts of America, and what it did to cover up.”
