Final Comment: Unintended Consequences of New York Structured Settlement Laws

In our original paper, “The Unintended Consequences of Tort Reform: Rent Seeking in New York State’s Structured Settlements Statutes” (2000; henceforth SS) and the follow-up response along with Frederick Floss (2002; henceforth SSF) the operative words are “unintended consequences.” There does not appear to be any disagreement between Thomas Ireland in his current comment and Anthony Riccardi (2001) or us as to the intention of the original 50-A and 50-B legislation. The provisions to New York law were made in an attempt to reduce litigation costs under the spirit of tort reform that was sweeping the nation in the 1980’s. Originally we stated