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The UC system has agreed to pay $243.6 million dollars to more than 200 women who say they were sexually abused by UCLA gynecologist Dr. James Heaps. This agreement comes after survivors claim decades of negligence by UCLA. Yesterday (Tuesday) during a Facebook Live stream, a few of the survivors and their attorneys spoke on this issue.
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The case of sexual abuse from a doctor resulting in a nine figure settlement at a Southern California university might sound familiar. USC’s multimillion dollar class action lawsuit involving former campus gynecologist George Tyndall in 2021 is still ongoing. UCLA gynecologist, Heaps is in the limelight today. Kara Cagle was receiving treatment for a rare form of breast cancer when she said Heaps abused her.
KARA CAGLE: I was completely dependent upon my doctors.
Every year that UCLA did not act on the abuse resulted in more victims. Cagle wishes UCLA had acted when she first spoke out.
CAGLE: Eight years. That’s how long I’ve been waiting for a response from UCLA about the horrific abuse inflicted upon me by one of their own doctors.
John Manley is the attorney representing Cagle and other survivors who suffered because of UCLA’s negligence.
JOHN MANLEY: If you enable systemic criminality against people that are in the most vulnerable place in their lives by a person they’re told they can trust. if anybody at UCLA acts like this was just a big mistake, that’s not what happened.
Survivor Julie Wallach has been waiting for over 20 years for her voice to finally be heard after being referred to Dr. Heaps.
JULIE WALLACH: I went to Dr. Heaps for an abnormal pap smear in the late 90s. I was getting ready to have my first child. I was terrified. And and I went to see him and he sexually abused me.
She knew what happened to her was wrong and she wanted to do something about it.
WALLACH: I was told that if I had a complaint to file to go to the medical board. So I went to the medical board. I filed a handwritten complaint. It was late nineties… And and I heard back I got a business card and and basically I was told, you know, that nothing was going to be done about it. Their findings were no. And so I felt unheard. And I was also alone, I was totally alone.
Wallach felt she had lost to UCLA but knows that is not true today.
WALLACH: We are the empowered ones, the survivors are the empowered ones.
The allegations against UCLA gynecologist are from hundreds of women all with their own traumatic stories. This Facebook live event gave a voice to a handful of survivors from the decades of abuse from UCLA gynecologist Dr. James Heaps.