Twenty five former students come forward with new lawsuit against Tyndall, USC

Content warning: This article contains explicit references to instances of sexual abuse, sexual harrassment, victim-blaming and harrassment based on gender and race.

Twenty five former USC students have come forward with a new lawsuit against former campus gynecologist George Tyndall, the University and 500 unnamed defendants with working relationships to the University, a press release from law firms Arias Sanguinetti Wang & Torrijos and Janet, Janet and Suggs confirmed Thursday. 

This brings the total to over 800 current and former students who have opted out of the $215 million class action settlement in January and who have filed lawsuits against USC and Tyndall, saying the University played a role in covering up about three decades of sexual abuse against patients at the Engemann Student Health Center. 

Additionally, Doe defendants 1 through 500, are alleged to have “engaged in a pattern and practice of ignoring complaints, failing to investigate sexual harassment and abuse complaints, deliberately concealing information from abuse victims as well as law enforcement and the Medical Board of California, and contributed to a sexually hostile environment on campus at USC,” according to the lawsuit. The identity and working capacities of these defendants are not yet known, but are said to comprise employees, agents or servants of USC who were under the University’s direct supervision.

“Throughout the litigation process involving George Tyndall, USC has been committed to resolving these lawsuits fairly,” the University wrote in a statement to the Daily Trojan Thursday. “Once the university is served with this lawsuit, it will review and respond to the allegations through the legal process.”

The plaintiffs, identified as Jane Does 138 to 162, have filed complaints that span almost the entirety of Tyndall’s tenure at USC, ranging from undergraduate and graduate students who attended the University from the late 1980s to 2017, a year after Tyndall was placed on leave pending an investigation into his conduct.

The lawsuit calls the defendant Tyndall “a serial sexual predator” who took advantage of his position to commit sexual abuses such as forcing patients to undress in his presence, photographing patients while they were unclothed, penetrating patients with unwashed hands and without personal protective equipment and making repeated comments that were meant to sexually harass and were racist and misogynistic in nature. 

In addition, the lawsuit turns to USC for letting Tyndall’s actions, “committed to satisfy [his] own prurient sexual desires,” continue for years while harboring knowledge of his actions by complaints from his patients. 

“Despite the fact that USC has publicly admitted that it received numerous documented complaints of TYNDALL’s sexually abusive behavior dating back to at least the year 2000, and that such complaints are now known to have existed as early as the year 1988, USC actively and deliberately concealed TYNDALL’s sexual abuse of female student patients for years, continuing to grant TYNDALL unfettered sexual access to the young students in his and USC’s, care, all to protect Defendant USC’s reputation and financial coffers,” the lawsuit read. 

The Los Angeles Police Department launched a criminal investigation into Tyndall’s conduct in May 2018, leading to the L.A. County District Attorney’s office filing 29 felony counts against him, including 11 counts of sexual battery by fraud of 16 different women from 2009 to 2016.

While the LAPD’s investigation is still pending, the civil suit allows the plaintiffs to bring action against Tyndall’s misconduct and under the Tom Bane Civil Rights Act under California civil code, which prohibits discrimination, intimidation or coercion based on a protected class that threatens the individual’s enjoyment of their personal and constitutional rights.

In total, the suit includes 16 causes of action against Tyndall, USC and Does 1 through 500 — along with the request for a jury trial. 

“USC paid more attention to its own financial gain and chose to protect a sexually deviant doctor instead of thousands upon thousands of women who trusted USC over the course of decades,” the press release read. “USC’s conduct empowered Tyndall to be an abusive predator for decades.”