All is not well at the University of Southern California (USC). Recently rocked by the revelation that wealthy parents paid hundreds of thousands to obtain admission for their underperforming children, USC appointed a new president last week, Carol Folt. Not only will Folt manage the fallout from the college admissions scandal, but she will also see the university through a multi-million dollar settlement with the thousands of patients treated by alleged sexual abuser and former university gynecologist Dr. George Tyndall. That is, unless a cadre of high-paid lawyers get their way.
Some California legislators want to pass a new law that would put the federal settlement in jeopardy for the sole reason of lining lawyers’ pockets. But legislators’ duty is to protect victims, not enrich lawyers.

Tyndall had served as the campus gynecologist for decades, seeing thousands of patients. Allegedly, he sexually abused and harassed them, making lewd comments, taking unnecessary photos of students, and performing unnecessary exams. Eventually, the university performed an internal investigation after students complained. They then made a secret deal with Tyndall in 2017 that allowed him to leave the university with a payout and a clean record with the state’s medical board.
The truth of the abuse and the coverup came out eventually, however, thanks to a May 2018 investigation by the Los Angeles Times.

So in October 2018, USC agreed to a $215-million federal class-action settlement that would allow any woman examined by Tyndall to receive compensation of $2,500, regardless of whether Tyndall harassed her during her exam. Women willing to write a statement or undergo an interview about their experience with Tyndall will receive between $7,500 and $250,000. This makes sense: Sexual harassment settlements should reward victims in proportion to their suffering and should in particular reward those willing to answer questions about their experience.

But the settlement was not good enough for some high-profile California lawyers. Gloria Allred called the settlement “grossly inadequate,” and joined other lawyers in filing about 600 lawsuits against Tyndall, even though the university expects that the federal settlement would compensate between 14,000 and 17,000 women.

If too many women opt out of the federal class-action settlement and decide to pursue state-level litigation instead, the whole settlement could be invalidated, potentially cheating thousands of women from monetary compensation. Many of these women have experienced crimes that can no longer be litigated in court due to the statute of limitations.

Strangely enough, the California legislature is attempting to expressly encourage more women to go to court for crimes that allegedly occurred decades ago. California Assembly Member Eloise Reyes introduced AB10, a bill that would give lawyers two years to sue USC on behalf of clients whose cases would normally fall outside the statute of limitations.

Of course, statutes of limitations exist in part because very old cases are difficult to prove; most evidence is long gone, and the memories that alleged victims hold are far less reliable. But a revised version of AB10 goes even further than bending the rules on the statutes of limitations, it also attempts to dissolve the settlement deal altogether by automatically reviving in state court the case of any woman who takes part in the federal settlement whose attorney does not reside in the state of California. If this occurs, the federal settlement will have essentially had no effect and would, by necessity, be dissolved.

In situations like this one, women’s advocates should promote what makes the most sense for Tyndall’s alleged victims, not what’s best for high-profile trial lawyers. When a class-action case could help thousands of women get justice without sacrificing their privacy, time, and money by heading to court, lawyers should think twice before putting that in jeopardy — and legislators should not bend the rules to encourage them to do so. Sadly, California legislators have made a habit of catering to trial lawyers with piles of legislation that have expanded businesses’ liability on every topic from food labeling to privacy to website accessibility. But in this case, it is not only the University of Southern California that will pay for its crimes — thousands of women could easily lose the payments that the class-action settlement has guaranteed them. Legislators who want to defend women’s rights should not do so by upending existing laws or indulging the desires of trial lawyers. It’s time for California to focus on the victims, not their lawyers.
Amelia Irvine is a Young Voices Contributor whose writing has appeared in USA Today, National Review, and the Washington Examiner. Follow her on Twitter: @ameliairvine3.