LOS ANGELES _ Five women filed civil lawsuits Monday alleging that a longtime gynecologist at the University of Southern California victimized them under the pretext of medical care and that USC failed to address complaints from clinic staffers about the doctor's behavior.
One woman alleged Dr. George Tyndall forced his entire ungloved hand into her vagina during an appointment in 2003 while making "vulgar" remarks about her genitalia, according to one of two lawsuits filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Another said Tyndall groped her breasts in a 2008 visit and that later he falsely told her she "likely had AIDS," according to the same lawsuit. A third woman alleged the doctor grazed his ungloved fingers over her nude body and leered at her during a purported skin exam, the lawsuit states.
Among the four plaintiffs in the first lawsuit is Viva Symanski, 30, who alleged she was abused by Tyndall in a January 2014 appointment _ something she realized after reading a Los Angeles Times investigation that detailed that Tyndall had faced misconduct complaints for years.
"We need to make a statement here that we need to change our practices," said Symanski.
Tyndall, 71, who worked at USC for nearly three decades, could not immediately be reached for comment Monday. In earlier interviews with the Times, the physician defended his medical exams as thorough and appropriate, adding that frank and honest dialogue about sex lives was part of his way of treating late adolescents who were enrolled at USC.
"I never had any sexual urges" toward patients, he said in an interview.
He has not been charges with any crimes, and the Los Angeles Police Department said Friday that it had not received any reports about him.
USC said in a statement that it was aware of the litigation. "We are focused on ensuring the safety and wellbeing of our students and providing support to those affected," the statement said.
On Monday, USC's provost, Michael Quick, issued a letter apologizing to Tyndall's patients but defending how top administrators handled the case.
"It is true that our system failed, but it is important that you know that this claim of a cover-up is patently false," Quick wrote in a letter. "We would never knowingly put students in harm's way."
Quick said that the university's senior leadership did not learn about the complaints against Tyndall until 2017.
"We wish Dr. Tyndall's conduct had surfaced earlier so we could have taken action sooner," Quick wrote.
The lawsuits signal that USC could face protracted and expensive litigation over allegations against the gynecologist.
The four women are represented by John Manly, an Orange County lawyer who helped secure a $500 million settlement last week from Michigan State University for scores of former patients of Dr. Larry Nassar.
"The president and the board at USC have created a culture and attitude of dehumanizing people and devaluing decency," said Manly, a USC alumnus. Manly said it was evident that the university ignored complaints for years.
"It doesn't matter how many people get hurt, it is all about protecting USC's reputation."
USC has acknowledged that administrators had reports about misconduct by Tyndall dating back to at least the early 2000s. Officials conceded last week that the gynecologist should have been removed from the clinic years earlier because of the severity of the complaints.
Tyndall was not suspended until June 2016, after a supervising nurse, Cindy Gilbert, became frustrated by clinic administrators for not taking complaints against Tyndall seriously and reported him to the campus rape crisis center. He was placed on paid leave for nearly one year and barred from the clinic while an internal investigation was underway.
The inquiry determined that his pelvic exams were outside the scope of accepted medical practice and amounted to sexual harassment of patients.
USC reached a secret deal with Tyndall last summer that allowed him to resign with an undisclosed financial payout. Administrators did not report him at the time to the state medical board, which investigates problem doctors. The university acknowledged last week that not reporting him was a mistake and said it had filed a belated complaint in March.
Quick, writing Monday, said "settlements never sound appropriate" but given USC's size and complexity, "it is often the most expedient way to remove someone from the university."
In the second lawsuit, a young woman who graduated from USC's law school in 2016 alleged Tyndall inserted his fingers inside her at the outset of a pelvic exam and remarked on the tightness of her genital muscles.
"She's in hindsight thinking, 'I'm not sure there's a reason for that to be done," said her attorney, David Ring.
The lawsuits say that many of the women did not recognize that what they experienced amounted to abuse until the allegations were made public.
Such a delayed notice will factor into the litigation, lawyers said. Ronald Labriola, an Irvine attorney who is working with Manly, said the plaintiffs will argue that the two-year statute of limitations does not apply to the gynecologist's conduct.
"For 99.95 percent of these patients, they didn't have a true understanding of the abuse until last week," he said, referring to the publication of the Times' report.
The litigation comes as hundreds of former patients have reached out to USC and shared accounts of their appointments with Tyndall on a dedicated hotline and online portal set up by the university last week. The university said it was establishing a way to connect many of the patients, with their consent, with Los Angeles Police Department detectives.
San Francisco attorney Paul E. Gaspari, who has defended school districts and Catholic dioceses in sex abuse suits, said that given the number of women coming forward and the consistency of their complaints, USC is all but certain to negotiate a mass settlement "for the good of the victims as well as the good of the institution."
"It is almost impossible to take them one by one. One case alone could easily result in a runaway verdict," Gaspari said. "You want to identify as many of the plaintiffs as you can and collectively deal with them."
