Judge affirms Boy Scouts of America's $2.46 billion sex abuse settlement

(Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Tuesday affirmed the Boy Scouts of America's $2.46 billion settlement of decades of sex abuse claims, rejecting appeals by some of the youth nonprofit's insurers and a minority of abuse claimants.

U.S. District Judge Richard Andrews in Wilmington, Delaware, ruled that the Boy Scouts agreement, which would create the largest sexual abuse settlement fund in U.S. history, was a good faith effort to resolve claims by more than 80,000 men who say they were abused as children by troop leaders.

The Boy Scouts settlement, approved in bankruptcy court in September, was supported by 86% of abuse claimants and the Boy Scouts' two largest insurers.

(Reporting by Dietrich Knauth; editing by Jonathan Oatis)