Erica Herman, the longtime girlfriend of Tiger Woods, filed a complaint Monday seeking a declaratory judgment that a nondisclosure agreement she signed while working with Woods is invalid and unenforceable, citing laws protecting sexual assault survivors. The complaint alleges that a trust controlled by the golfer asserted that the NDA was enforceable, and that Woods initiated an arbitration against him based on that.
While neither party has publicly confirmed that their relationship, which lasted six years, is over, the complaint, obtained by CBS News, states, “The defendant had a long relationship both professionally and personally.”
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The couple had been living together in Florida, where the complaint was initially filed in Martin County court, but court records still list their shared home as the primary residence of both parties.
The NDA was signed in 2017, the year Herman and Woods began dating. According to the complaint, Herman’s complaint seeks to prove one or more of the following:
that the NDA is not valid or enforceable; that if it is enforceable, the court should define the parameters of its enforceability; that the arbitration clause in the NDA is inapplicable to this case, and that any determination of its applicability should be made by a court, not an arbitrator, under the federal Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act; NDAs are not enforceable under the federal Speak Out Act.
Both the End Sexual Harassment and Sexual Harassment Act and the Speak Out Act were enacted to help protect survivors of sexual misconduct by voiding and prohibiting the enforceability of arbitration agreements in cases involving sexual assault or harassment. A respective NDA on sexual misconduct.
Herman alleges that he and Woods “have an actual, present, adverse and opposing interest” in the subject matter of the complaint, but does not specifically accuse Woods of any wrongdoing.
CBS News has reached out to representatives for both Herman and Woods, but has not yet heard back.
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