As part of the current settlement, each woman will be awarded $1.2 million. UCLA Health says it is establishing protocols to prevent, identify and address sexual misconduct, including increasing Title IX resources to create a team to ensure timely response to sexual harassment and improved chaperone policies for sensitive exams and procedures. It also will create pre-hiring and credentialing protocols.

Its investigation against Heaps found that UCLA’s response to his actions and those of four other doctors were “at times either delayed or inadequate or both”. It also found feedback forms from the gynecologist’s medical students with complaints that said he was “very touchy,” “very inappropriate,” and made “comments with innuendos.”


The university still faces suits from more than 300 other patients. Some of Heap’s former patients with late-stage cancer have given depositions so their suits may continue after they die.

“Today, after eight long years, I received recognition of what happened to me,” said Kara Cagle, a breast cancer survivor who reported Heaps while she was undergoing treatment at the university. “Although there is some consolation in that, my heart breaks for all the women who were not spared, all the women who suffered after me, because UCLA refused to act.

John Manly, a lawyer for the lead plaintiff in the Heaps case, says the “historic settlement” will provide compensation and open up the opportunity for these women to heal. “What this says is that when two of the largest hospitals in our county both have long-term sexual predators practicing medicine, there is a problem in the systems. What my clients hope is that UCLA and the entire UC system dramatically change their policies to address the issues here.”

In recent years, a number of universities have been hit with lawsuits over sexual abuse perpetrated by medical staff they employed at one point. In a similar case just last month, the University of Michigan agreed to pay $490 million to students who were sexually abused by its former sports doctor Robert Anderson. Allegations dated back all the way to the 1960s, and the majority of students abused were men.

Each will receive $438,000, with $30 million set aside for future accusers who come forward by July 31, 2023. The amount is among the largest made by an American university to settle sexual abuse allegations, and was the largest of any that involved mostly male victims.

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