Friday, March 29, 2024

AdvertiseDonateSubmit
NewsSportsArtsOpinionThe QuadPhotoVideoIllustrationsCartoonsGraphicsThe StackPRIMEEnterpriseInteractivesPodcastsBruinwalkClassifieds

Advocates, attorneys inform James Heaps’ former patients of their options

John Manly, an attorney representing more than 100 of James Heaps’ former patients, spoke in front of Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, encouraging those who qualify for the class action lawsuit to consider all options before the opt-out deadline May 6. (Javier Jauregui/Daily Bruin)

By Emmi Deckard and Alexandra Guadagno

April 21, 2021 3:34 p.m.

One of James Heaps’ former patients, attorneys and advocates gathered outside of Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center on Tuesday to inform former patients of their options regarding UCLA’s $73 million class action settlement.

Heaps is a former UCLA OB-GYN who was accused of sexually assaulting hundreds of people. Heaps is pleading not guilty to 20 counts of felony sexual misconduct charges.

UCLA agreed to a $73 million class action settlement in January that offers Heaps’ former patients between $2,500 and $250,000. However, the settlement prevents former patients who do not opt out of the settlement from filing any individual lawsuits against Heaps in the future.

In the settlement, neither UCLA nor Heaps admit wrongdoing.

John Manly, an attorney whose firm is representing more than 100 of the women filing individual lawsuits against Heaps, said at the event that the settlement only caters to UCLA and its lawyers rather than the victims.

The average award per alleged victim in UCLA’s class action lawsuit is $11,000, Manly said. In comparison, individuals who filed individual cases against George Tyndall, a USC gynecologist who was accused of sexually abusing hundreds of women, received an average of $1.2 million from a settlement USC made in March.

More than 300 of Heaps’ more than 6,000 former patients have already opted out of the settlement and filed individual lawsuits, Manly said.

“This settlement was reached with almost no investigation. There’s been no depositions, no discovery, nothing,” Manly said. “This settlement allows UCLA to keep its secrets, its dark secrets that allowed so many people who came here for life-saving treatment to be sexually molested.”

Taylor Rayfield, a partner at Manly, Stewart & Finaldi, said that the class action settlement goes behind everyone’s back by having former patients opt out instead of opt in to the settlement.

“UCLA has already decided that you will be part of this class action, with no recourse, unless you are lucky enough to receive notice, to read the notice, to understand the notice and to realize that what they have done is bound to something that you have never once spoken to anyone about,” Rayfield said.

Buffy Wicks, a California assemblywoman, authored CA Assembly Bill 3092, which gave sexual assault survivors until the end of 2021 to file charges against Heaps. The bill was an exception to California law that gives survivors of sexual assault only up to 10 years after the incident to file claims. However, the opt-out deadline for the settlement is May 6.

Heaps worked at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center from 2014 to 2018 and worked part time at UCLA Arthur Ashe Student Health and Wellness Center, where he treated UCLA students for 28 years.

Some of those alleging sexual misconduct are former UCLA students.

Jane Reilley, a two-time UCLA alumna and attorney at Manly, Stewart & Finaldi, said she was attending UCLA while Heaps was carrying out the alleged misconduct.

“It’s heartbreaking and enraging, and now I know that while I was attending this campus that I called home for so many years, it was also sheltering one of the most prolific sexual predators we’ve seen today,” Reilley said.

UCLA was aware of Heaps’ misconduct as early as 2014 and has been accused of covering it up. Since 2014, UCLA has received at least 159 complaints about Heaps, according to UCLA Health’s website.

Phil Hampton, a UCLA Health spokesperson, said in an emailed statement that the incidents described in the litigation go against UCLA Health’s values.

“We remain committed to providing quality care that respects the dignity of every patient,” Hampton said.

Julie Wallach, Heaps’ longtime patient who said Heaps sexually assaulted her, said she felt silenced and disregarded when UCLA was unresponsive to her initial reports of Heaps’ misconduct, which she made in 1999.

“When you have one person like Dr. Heaps doing what he did, do you know how many people around him have to make that happen, have to perpetuate that kind of crime?” Wallach said. “It takes a village. … It’s reprehensible to me.”

Audry Nafziger and Lucy Chi – two people who were allegedly assaulted by Tyndall – and Wallach hugged and held each other’s hands between their speeches in front of the medical center.

In 2017, UCLA opened an internal investigation into Heaps. He allegedly assaulted at least four more women before his employment was terminated in 2018. Students were not made aware of the investigation until 2019.

Nafziger, senior deputy district attorney of Ventura County, said people who allowed Heaps to carry out misconduct should be aggressively investigated.

“No one else at UCLA who knew, who failed to report or covered up for his misdeeds has been held to account,” Nafziger said. “No one else has been arrested. No one else is facing criminal charges.”

Nafziger compared UCLA and Heaps’ case to USC’s sexual assault misconduct allegations against Tyndall. Despite administrators at other universities that had sexual assault lawsuits going to jail, administrators at USC and UCLA have not been prosecuted, Nafziger said.

Manly said California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón should launch an investigation into UCLA.

“How many women does it take to be sacrificed, their sexual and emotional health to be sacrificed, before somebody in charge does something?” Manly said.

Share this story:FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Emmi Deckard
COMMENTS
Featured Classifieds
More classifieds »
Related Posts