Calif. court: Scouts must surrender abuse files

LOS ANGELES A California appellate court has upheld a Santa Barbara judge's order saying the Boy Scouts of America must surrender decades of confidential files detailing alleged child sex abuse.

A Scouts spokesman told the Los Angeles Times on Thursday that the organization will appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court.

A lawsuit alleges that a local Scouts official tried to keep a boy's mother from reporting his 2007 abuse by a volunteer leader to police. The youth group denies the allegations.

In January, a Santa Barbara judge ordered all files since 1991 be turned over to the boy's lawyers, but not the public.

The order involves different files than those made public in October by order of the Oregon Supreme Court. Those files ranged from 1959 to 1985.