Columbia University and New York-Presbyterian have agreed to pay $750 million to hundreds of people who were sexually abused by disgraced former ob-gyn Robert Hadden, aiming to address hundreds of sexual abuse claims that spanned more than two decades.
The settlement, signed by a New York State Supreme Court judge on Monday, will deliver $1.3 million on average to each of the 576 patients who filed lawsuits against Hadden, according to Anthony DiPietro, a lawyer representing the patients. The deal brings the hospitals’ total payout to more than $1 billion to settle lawsuits alleging that they covered up Hadden’s repeated misconduct and failed to protect patients from abuse.
“Columbia University enabled sadistic abuse, and now they’ve been forced to face the truth,” Laurie Maldonado, one of Hadden’s former patients, said in a statement. “This settlement is not money – it’s about accountability.”
Hundreds of women accused Hadden of sexual abuse under the guise of medical care between 1985 and 2012, according to prosecutors. The former ob-gyn stopped working in 2012 after one of his patients reported to the police that he had abused her during a medical exam. But Hadden was not forced to give up his medical license until he reached a plea deal with the Manhattan district attorney’s office in 2016.
Hadden was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2023 after he was found guilty of luring four patients to cross state lines for medical examinations where he sexually abused them.
Columbia launched a $100 million fund for survivors who were abused by Hadden in 2023 and also began an external investigation of the failures that allowed abuse under Hadden to continue, the institution said.
“We deeply regret the pain that his patients suffered, and this settlement is another step forward in our ongoing work and commitment to repair harm and support survivors,” the spokesperson said.
The settlement was reached one day before New York-Presbyterian reportedly announced a plan to lay off 2% of its staff in the next month due to the “current macroeconomic realities and anticipated challenges ahead,” a move that could affect 1,000 employees, Politico reported. A spokesperson for New York-Presbyterian did not answer a question about whether the layoffs were related to the recent settlement.
