The University of California has offered to pay $73 million to settle with 5,000 women their class-action lawsuit asserting a staff gynecologist sexually abused them during medical procedures. This is yet another big case involving claims of years of widespread and sordid professional misconduct that somehow went undetected at a major institution, which has acknowledged it reacted poorly when confronted with a problematic clinician.
The proposed settlement still requires the sign-off of a federal judge, and it may not go through if more plaintiffs decide against joining this deal, as lawyers in Los Angeles have said they will not.
James Heaps, 67, a one-time gynecologist who is at the center of the scandal at UCLA, also still faces criminal charges for his actions during his 1983-2019 career at the university, in its student health center and at its medical center. The Los Angeles Times reported that the doctor was first arrested in June 2019 for sexually touching two patients in 2017. But then: