{"id":2213,"date":"2026-07-26T17:03:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T17:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gifted-chandrasekhar.174-138-183-210.plesk.page\/?page_id=2213"},"modified":"2026-07-26T17:13:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T17:13:12","slug":"ending-forced-arbitration-of-sexual-assault-and-sexual-harassment-act","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/gifted-chandrasekhar.174-138-183-210.plesk.page\/?page_id=2213","title":{"rendered":"ENDING FORCED ARBITRATION OF SEXUAL ASSAULT AND SEXUAL HARASSMENT ACT"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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ENDING FORCED ARBITRATION OF SEXUAL ASSAULT AND SEXUAL HARASSMENT ACT<\/strong>
<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t\t

Doe v. Second Street Corporation, 105 Cal. App. 5th 552<\/em><\/strong>

Kader v. Southern California Medical Center, 99 Cal. App. 5th 214<\/em><\/strong>

Liu v. Miniso Depot CA, Inc., 105 Cal. App. 5th 791<\/em><\/strong>



Doe v. Second Street Corporation, 105 Cal. App. 5th 552<\/em><\/strong>

The plaintiff filed suit against defendants, operators of a hotel, alleging a variety of sexual discrimination claims plus wage and hour allegations. She worked as a server and alleged that she was sexually assaulted by a fellow server, in October 2019, which was prior to the enactment of the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act (EFAA). She claimed that the defendants ignored her requests that she not be assigned to the same shifts as her alleged attacker, made her repeat the details of her attack to a supervisor months after the assault, and accused her of having a consensual sexual relationship with the attacker. She resigned in May 2022, after EFAA was enacted, and termed her departure as a constructive discharge. The trial court denied defendants\u2019 motion to compel arbitration on the ground that the EFAA applied because 1) the discharge occurred after EFAA\u2019s enactment and 2) it applied to the entire case and not just to the sexual harassment claims. The defendants appealed and the Court of Appeal affirmed.

The EFAA applies where a plaintiff alleges a course of sexually harassing conduct that occurs both before and after the EFAA's enactment. Where sexual discrimination or harassment claims involve repeated conduct, the \u201cunlawful employment practice\u201d occurs over a series of days or perhaps years. Thus, a hostile work environment claim will not be time barred so long as all acts which constitute the claim are part of the same unlawful employment practice and at least one act falls within the limitations period.

The hotel then contended that even if the arbitration provision was unenforceable as to the plaintiff\u2019s sexual harassment claims, the plaintiff\u2019s other claims should have been ordered to arbitration. The court disagreed. The EFAA facially applies to \u201ca case which \u2026 relates to the sexual assault dispute or the sexual harassment dispute.\u201d 9 U.S.C. \u00a7 402(a). By its plain language, then, the statute applied to the entire case, not merely to the sexual assault or sexual harassment claims alleged as a part of the case. The statute does not require that the pendant claims arise out of the sexual assault or sexual harassment dispute. It is enough that the case relates to the sexual assault or sexual harassment claims.

Kader v. Southern California Medical Center, 99 Cal. App. 5th 214<\/em><\/strong>

In May 2022, Kader filed a complaint in Superior Court alleging that he had been sexually harassed by his supervisor, beginning in November 2018. The defendant filed a motion to compel arbitration based on an arbitration agreement that Kader signed in June 2019. The trial court denied the motion, citing the EFAA, which became effective in March 2022. The defendant appealed, arguing that the Act did not apply because the arbitration agreement predated the effective date of the Act and because it was not a pre-dispute agreement, given that the alleged acts occurred before the agreement was signed.

The Court of Appeal affirmed. The Act does not define a \u201cdispute\u201d or state when a dispute has \u201carisen.\u201d It looked to general and legal dictionaries for a term's ordinary meaning. Black's Law Dictionary defines a dispute as a \u201cconflict or controversy, esp. one that has given rise to a particular lawsuit.\u201d

The court concluded that the date that a dispute has arisen for purposes of the Act is a factspecific inquiry in each case, but a dispute does not arise solely from the alleged sexual conduct. A dispute arises when one party asserts a right, claim, or demand, and the other side expresses disagreement or takes an adversarial posture. In other words, a dispute cannot arise until both sides have expressed their disagreement, either through words or actions. Until there is a conflict or disagreement, there is nothing to resolve in litigation

The definitions within the Act also make clear that a dispute requires more than an injury. The Act defines a \u201csexual assault dispute\u201d as \u201ca dispute<\/em> involving a nonconsensual act or sexual conduct,\u201d and it defines \u201csexual harassment dispute\u201d\u2019 as \u201ca dispute<\/em> relating to conduct that is alleged to constitute sexual harassment\u201d\u2019 If the underlying conduct alone\u2014the sexual assault or harassment\u2014automatically gave rise to a dispute, then the legislature's use of the word \u201cdispute\u201d within these two definitions would be superfluous. A \u201csexual assault dispute\u201d would merely mean \u201ca nonconsensual act or sexual conduct\u201d\u2019 And a \u201csexual harassment dispute\u201d would mean \u201cconduct that is alleged to constitute sexual harassment\u201d. This cannot be so. A statute should be construed so that effect is given to all its provisions, so that no part will be inoperative or superfluous, void or insignificant.

Liu v. Miniso Depot CA, Inc., 105 Cal. App. 5th 791<\/em><\/strong>

Plaintiff sued Miniso, her former employer, asserting two causes of action alleging sexual harassment and several other causes of action asserting employment related causes of action which did not involve sexual harassment. Miniso\u2019s motion to compel arbitration was denied because Section 402(a) of the EFAA barred arbitration of all of the claims. Miniso appealed, arguing that the non-sexual harassment claims were arbitrable.

The Court of Appeal affirmed. One cannot reasonably interpret section 402(a) as invalidating an arbitration agreement only with respect to certain claims within a case. The term Congress chose\u2014\u201ccase\u201d\u2014is different from the term \u201cclaim.\u201d If Congress had intended the result Miniso seeks, it would have used the term \u201cclaim\u201d instead of \u201ccase\u201d or alternatively stated that the arbitration provision would be unenforceable \u201conly to that portion of the case related to the sexual harassment dispute.\u201d Congress did not use such language, and the court lacked the power to rewrite a statute to make it conform to a presumed intention which is not expressed in the statute itself.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ENDING FORCED ARBITRATION OF SEXUAL ASSAULT AND SEXUAL HARASSMENT ACT Doe v. Second Street Corporation, 105 Cal. App. 5th 552 Kader v. Southern California Medical Center, 99 Cal. App. 5th 214 Liu v. Miniso Depot CA, Inc., 105 Cal. App. 5th 791 Doe v. Second Street Corporation, 105 Cal. App. 5th 552 The plaintiff filed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2213","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gifted-chandrasekhar.174-138-183-210.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gifted-chandrasekhar.174-138-183-210.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gifted-chandrasekhar.174-138-183-210.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gifted-chandrasekhar.174-138-183-210.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gifted-chandrasekhar.174-138-183-210.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2213"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/gifted-chandrasekhar.174-138-183-210.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2220,"href":"https:\/\/gifted-chandrasekhar.174-138-183-210.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2213\/revisions\/2220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gifted-chandrasekhar.174-138-183-210.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}