USC facing massive legal fight, costs in doctor case

At least 200 former University of Southern California students have joined lawsuits against the university, alleging it failed to heed warnings for nearly 30 years that a campus gynecologist was sexually abusing patients.

Lawyers representing the alleged victims expect the number of women suing to reach at least several hundred and possibly thousands. If successful, the suits could cost the university hundreds of millions of dollars.

“I have never seen anything like the volume of calls we are getting,” said John Manly, a lawyer who has represented sex abuse victims in mass litigation cases.

In the first three weeks following the Los Angeles Times’ revelations, Manly said he received calls from 120 former patients of Dr. George Tyndall, a student health clinic gynecologist who was employed by USC and is now under investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department over allegations of sex abuse.

“The alarming thing is we have women from the very beginning of his employment in 1989 to the very end,” Manly said. “It indicates he engaged in this behavior throughout his tenure at USC.”

Manly was the lead lawyer for sexual abuse victims of Michigan State University sports physician Larry Nassar.

Michigan State settled suits by 332 victims for $500 million, with the average victim receiving $1.3 million, Manly said.

“There were restrictions in the state of Michigan that kept those settlements a little bit depressed, whereas in California I think you are going to see higher numbers,” said David M. Ring, who also has sued USC on behalf of dozens of women.

Suits against the Los Angeles Roman Catholic Archdiocese resulted in a $660-million settlement in 2007, with sex abuse victims receiving an average of $1.5 million each.

Lawyers for Tyndall’s former patients say he inappropriately put his fingers into their vaginas and anuses, watched them while they undressed, required them to lie naked on the exam table without a sheet, took pictures of their genitals, commented on the size of their vaginas, falsely diagnosed some with dreaded diseases and praised some patients’ breasts.