Opinion ID: 1267676
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: liability of bsa

Text: Because the jury found in BSA's favor, the facts will be summarized in the light most favorable to that defendant. BSA was chartered by Congress in 1916 to deliver the scouting program to American youth through existing community organizations. BSA makes an annual report to Congress on the progress of the program. BSA issues charters to regional groups of volunteers who, in turn, incorporate in their own respective states, raise their own funds, hire their own staff, and promote the scouting movement in their respective regions. These regional groups are called councils. One such council is NCAC, chartered in the District of Columbia to promote scouting in that jurisdiction as well as in Northern Virginia and Southern Maryland. The local councils offer the scouting program only through existing community organizations such as churches, schools, service clubs, and fraternal organizations. Community organizations wishing to offer some phase of the scouting program may apply to the local council for a charter. The chartered organization may then engage in such phases of the scouting program as the organization sees fit. A chartered organization desiring to form a boy scout troop designates a group of volunteers, consisting of organization members and parents, as a troop committee. The troop committee is responsible for the operation of the troop, designates its program, selects its leaders, and provides its meeting place. It is the committee's responsibility to select the scoutmaster and assist him in providing a sound program for the troop. When the troop committee has chosen a scoutmaster, it sends an adult application and registration fee to the local council, which notes it on the troop's roster and forwards the scoutmaster's application to BSA's headquarters in Irving, Texas. When the application is received there, the applicant's name is checked against a confidential list of persons previously reported to BSA as unfit. If not so listed, and if the applicant meets other requirements, the application is approved and returned to the local council. BSA is controlled by a National Council, which selects an Executive Board. Both are comprised of volunteers. The Board selects a paid executive who employs a staff of about 235 persons nationwide, known as professional scouters. The local councils are similarly composed. Their governing boards, consisting of volunteers, hire a paid executive who, in turn, employs a staff of professional scouters. There are approximately 409 local councils in the country, employing approximately 3,300 professional scouters. Nationally, there are 1.4 million to 1.7 million adult volunteers serving each year, with an annual turnover of about one-third. Approximately four million boys are involved in scouting each year. BSA had no facilities for investigating allegations of unfitness, but it did promulgate a procedure for maintaining standards of leadership. This procedure required local councils to inform BSA of any information they discovered which reflected on the fitness of any volunteer. BSA's file contained many unproven allegations, and was therefore kept in confidence. Nevertheless, if an applicant was listed there, BSA would notify the local council that the volunteer was ineligible. A local troop committee could discharge a scoutmaster directly for misconduct, without any prior approval by BSA or the local council. In 1980, Bittenbender had been a volunteer scoutmaster in Troop 3, in Barrington, Rhode Island, under the jurisdiction of the Narragansett Council. While there, he was accused of homosexual molestation of four boys in the troop. In 1981, he was convicted by a Rhode Island court of four counts of sexual assault on one of the scouts, after pleading nolo contendere, and was sentenced to five years imprisonment, suspended upon condition of mandatory psychiatric treatment during five years of probation. Bittenbender saw several therapists for his admitted pedophilia before coming to Virginia in late 1983. He stated that he thought the therapy had brought his pedophilia under control. After Bittenbender's conviction in Rhode Island, the scouting executive employed by the Narragansett Council intended to inform BSA's headquarters of the matter, and thought that he had done so. The executive checked his files after Bittenbender's arrest in Virginia, however, and determined that he had inadvertently failed to notify BSA. It is undisputed that no adverse information concerning Bittenbender ever reached BSA's files until after Bittenbender's arrest in Virginia. In January, 1984, Troop 1970 had been without a scoutmaster for several months. The troop committee asked NCAC for assistance, but it was unable to help. A minister told Bittenbender of the troop's vacancy, and Bittenbender applied to the troop committee, which selected him as a volunteer scoutmaster after two or three interviews. Neither BSA nor NCAC took any part in his selection. Bittenbender's pedophilia came to the attention of the troop committee in May 1985, when the father of another boy reported Bittenbender's relationship with his son to the committee. The committee then, on its own accord, obtained Bittenbender's resignation. In July 1985, Infant C. first told his parents of his relationship with Bittenbender. The parents reported this to the Fairfax police and Bittenbender's criminal prosecution and conviction followed. Although Bittenbender had begun acting as scoutmaster for Troop 1970 in January, 1984, and his molestation of Infant C. began at that time, Bittenbender's adult application to be a scoutmaster was not dated until September 13 of that year, and it was not received at BSA headquarters until November 14. The boy broke off the relationship in December. Thus, BSA did not approve the application until the relationship had nearly ended. BSA and NCAC asserted the defense of charitable immunity. The plaintiff argued in the trial court and on appeal that the doctrine of charitable immunity should be abrogated, or at least modified in the circumstances of this case. The trial court, however, correctly noted that the plaintiff's allegations brought the case within a well-established exception to the doctrine: a charitable organization is liable to the beneficiaries of the charity for the negligence of its employees if it fails to exercise ordinary care in the selection and retention of those employees. J ... v. Victory Tabernacle Baptist Church, 236 Va. 206, 208, 372 S.E.2d 391, 393 (1988); Hill v. Memorial Hospital, Inc., 204 Va. 501, 507, 132 S.E.2d 411, 415 (1963); Memorial Hospital v. Oakes, Adm'x., 200 Va. 878, 885, 108 S.E.2d 388, 393 (1959); Norfolk Prot. Hospital v. Plunkett, 162 Va. 151, 153, 173 S.E. 363, 363-64 (1934); Weston's Adm'x. v. St. Vincent, etc., 131 Va. 587, 610, 107 S.E. 785, 792 (1921). The case was submitted to the jury pursuant to that exception. It is therefore unnecessary that we consider any modification of the doctrine of charitable immunity, even if we were inclined to do so, because that doctrine had no material impact on the present case. At the plaintiff's request, the court instructed the jury that if BSA and/or NCAC selected and/or retained Carlton Bittenbender as a Scoutmaster for Troop 1970, and if BSA and/or NCAC were negligent in the selection and/or retention of Bittenbender, then, if that negligence was a proximate cause of injury to the plaintiff, the jury must find for the plaintiff. Further, at the plaintiff's request, the court correctly instructed the jury on the principles of agency and told the jury that notice to an agent is legally imputed to its principal. Under these instructions, counsel for the plaintiff was enabled to argue to the jury that the local councils were agents of BSA, that notice of Bittenbender's pedophilia, obtained by the Narragansett Council, was imputed to BSA, and that BSA's acquiescence in Bittenbender's appointment as scoutmaster to Troop 1970 was negligent. [1] By agreement of counsel, eleven special interrogatories were submitted to the jury in lieu of a general verdict form. Interrogatory 3 asked the jury: Did the Boy Scouts of America select and/or retain Carlton Bittenbender as a scoutmaster for Troop 1970? The jury answered No. Plaintiff's counsel made no objection to the form of the question. The instructions given without objection, and the interrogatories propounded by the court, with counsel's agreement, have become the law of the case. Bradner v. Mitchell, 234 Va. 483, 491, 362 S.E.2d 718, 723 (1987); Norfolk & Portsmouth Railroad v. Barker, 221 Va. 924, 928, 275 S.E.2d 613, 615 (1981). Although the plaintiff suggests, on appeal, that the local councils should have been held to be BSA's agents as a matter of law, the plaintiff concurred in submitting the issue of agency to the jury. Indeed, the evidence on that issue was such as to lead reasonable persons to opposite conclusions, and was therefore proper for determination by a jury. There was abundant evidence to support the conclusion the jury ultimately reached. Accordingly, we will affirm the judgment in favor of BSA. [2]