The Unintended Consequences of ‘doing Good’ Laws

New York Post
May 6, 2019

https://nypost.com/2019/05/06/the-unintended-consequences-of-doing-good-laws/

“Doing good” can have serious unintended consequences — especially if you don’t look closely before you act.

State lawmakers, for example, didn’t consider how the new Child Victim Act would impact .?.?. local schools.

The law opened the door to civil lawsuits over past abuse, effectively extending the statute of limitations in these cases. The Legislature was plainly thinking about the victims in various Catholic Church scandals — but didn’t think about the public schools.

Now, the (Albany) Times Union reports, “Insurance companies are warning that the new law will likely lead to higher insurance rates for the state’s nearly 700 public school districts.”

California passed its own “look back” abuse-lawsuit legislation in 2003. As a result, notes Tom Stebbins of the Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York, the Los Angeles Unified School District pays out tens of millions a year in abuse settlements — $139 million in the banner year of 2014.

This could eat up all the extra funds lawmakers devoted to education this year.

Another example: When Speaker Corey Johnson led the way to giving free phone calls to detainees and prisoners at Rikers Island, he surely didn’t anticipate the possibility of increased jail violence.

As The Post has reported, gang-affiliated inmates routinely beat or intimidated phone-access codes from weaker ones even before Johnson’s reform. Now veteran Rikers commanders fear the violence could grow, while the intended beneficiaries suffer and the bad guys profit.

Look before you legislate, please.