How bad do the JWs need to be doing financially

by cognac 51 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  DesirousOfChange

  Doc - That's wrong. There's a parent company, anything associated with it is still liable.

  WTBTSofPA was requested dismissed as a defendant from the Contri lawsuit and it was granted. IDK the exact details. Maybe a Legal Beagle here will recall and respond. But my recollection is the PA Corp is the "parent company" or at least the original Corp.

  Further, I sued a developer who was building projects in multiple Corp names. XYZ#1; XYZ#2; all the way to XYZ#6. I worked for #4 and that corp defaulted several suppliers & contractors. Mr. XYZ (a multi millionaire) agreed to give these suppliers (including Doc & Assoc Inc) an IOU from XYZ#4 until it solved it's issues and could pay. XYZ#4 paid interest on time every month for 1 year and then stopped. In that period of 1 year, XYZ#4 liquidated all assets and work continued on the site by XYZ#5. Wanna guess what my IOU was worth? Do you think I could just go after XYZ#5? Or, XYZ#1? Or, even Mr Z? No to all. Every Corp is a single entity. If Corp #5 was not liable, I could not sue it for damages. Since XYZ#4 was broke, I could continue the suit (and pay my lawyer $250/hr to do that) and likely I would get a judgement, but since XYZ#4 was broke I wouldn't collect a dime.
  

  (For further examples of this, examine Donald Trumps record on filing bankruptcy in multiple corporations.)

  I'm not a lawyer, but I have paid the college tuition for pne of my lawyer's kids.
  

  Doc
  
• 

  cognac

  Doc - Suing a developer is different then a child molestation lawsuit. The lawsuit you were in is governed by state laws. However; these lawsuits are federal cases.
• 

  DesirousOfChange

  Then what was the purpose of the Catholic archdioceses filing for bankruptcy? Couldn't the lawsuit just pursue the "parent company"? Or, any other "branch" of the RCC? How would they benefit from bankruptcy protection?

  Doc
  
• 

  StarTrekAngel

  I don't think that is entirely that impossible. I think that filling for bankruptcy would be a very bad move for them. Any move that seem voluntary and initiated from within would be harder to justify in front of the R&F. Not that they won't be able to justify successfully, I say its just harder when there are other options. Everyone donating $1 a month. I find that hard to achieve. Not everyone in the world can afford to donate a dollar a month, much less for the foreseeable future. There is only about 1 million JWs in the US. With that said, they probably would not take all of that money in and put it directly into cashflow. Most likely invested in some form of another, which means they would have to wait on the return to start coming in

  Assuming all of the above is accurate to some degree, a re definition, re organization, re branding will be most likely and much more acceptable to the majority of the members.

  If they haven't figured it out by now, asking everyone to pay a "membership fee" in order to get baptized could be much more easily swallowed than tithing or anything that pushes compulsory donations down and directly to the members. Provided that they crunch the numbers, it could almost work as a group insurance, where we all pay a fee, just in case one of the members slips and rapes a child.
• 

  YinzerDad

  To sue the parent company, the plaintiff would need to demonstrate one of two things: (1) the parent company caused the damages directly or (2) the parent company exercised enough control over the subsidiary that caused the damages to blur the lines between the corporate entities. Control would be things like: (a) directives, (b) shared bank accounts, (c) shared trade names, (d) shared property... etc. etc. Something to make the corporate structures look farcical. My suspicion is that the Pennsylvania society was dropped out of the Conti suit because the plaintiff couldn't tie it to the damage caused. But that's suspicion. I haven't read the filings or the case.
  
  As to when the WTBS could go bankrupt... it's a question of when they have too many creditors to pay. Right now, it doesn't seem they've done anything more than fleece local congregations out of a ton of money and mismanage some construction projects (child abuse debacle aside). I'm not sure who the creditors are, but if we're talking about bank mortgages, construction/materialmens liens on local KH or WTBS corporate campus... those liens are specific to property (at least in the U.S.) So the first step would be for the bank to foreclose on the building itself. The only way the bank/construction company gets to go after other assets is if there is a deficiency between the foreclosure sale price and the judgment/lien sum. Other than a bank or construction company, I'm not sure who WTBS is borrowing from? May have had some revolving credit lines but so long as the debt remains under a certain percentage of the total line and the monthly payments are met, the bank isn't going to care. Which leads me to...
  
  Child abuse suits. Child abuse victims pose a huge threat to the finances of the WTBS because if they are able to go to court and win, they are going to go straight for any and all corporate assets when the judgments are executed. If I were a betting man, I would say the consolidation of resources, the sudden liquidity of billion dollar properties and the halting of construction projects is being done as a pre-emptive measure against a perceived flood of lawsuits. If Australia, with roughly 70,000 witnesses had 1,000+ unreported child abuse cases (being roughly 1.7% of witnesses there) then imagine what the U.S. would be at the same percentage and 1.2 million witnesses? 20,000+ cases. Whether the numbers hold true, I don't know. But if I were in the position of the WTBS, I don't know that I'd want to litigate it and find out.

  They'll try to settle all at once with large cash distributions. And if they can't... you've got potentially a billion dollars worth of judgment creditors wanting paid every single penny they're owed. THAT could force them into bankruptcy. So, it's a question of how quickly those suits materialize, if at all.
• 

  Vidiot

  cognac - "How bad do the JWs need to be doing financially... before they just go ahead and file Chapter 7 or 11?"

  Personally, I suspect every JW has filed for chapter 11 at least once...

  ...oh wait, you meant the WTS. :wink:

  x

  Seriously, though, I think the GB would rather run the Org into the ground - a full-on crash-and-burn - than "admit defeat" like that.
• 

  cognac

  Yinzer - Very informative. Thank you.
• 

  sparrowdown

  I reckon if they went bust, the first we would be hearing about it is when all the faders turn up for the Sunday meeting to find it closed with a for sale sign in the front.
• 

  cofty

  Yinzerdad - Thanks.

  Perhaps the changes are being led by urgent advice from the lawyers. The events in Australia must have given them pause.

  Can you imagine the horror if the cult went bust because of their mishandling of child abuse? A policy that was intended to protect the reputation of the organisation could end up destroying it.
• 

  lrkr

  It's really all about debt. A company can be riding high and have a $4 MIL loan that they stop making payments on. The bank files for collection and the company seeks chapter 11 protection.

  From what I know about WT they don't really borrow money. They tend to operate in cash. In my mind the recent cutbacks are a result of a sudden, unexpected drop in cash position. Or an utter failure in internal reporting of cash on hand.