Law&Crime Sidebar - 5 Shocking Revelations from Tiger Woods’ Sexual Harassment Lawsuit

Episode Date: May 13, 2023

Famed golfer Tiger Woods is facing an accusation of sexual harassment by his ex-girlfriend, Erica Herman. The plaintiff alleges Woods forced her to sign a non-disclosure agreement or she would be fired from her job at his restaurant, “The Woods Jupiter.” The Law&Crime Network’s Angenette Levy and sports attorney Dan Lust break down five shocking revelations from the lawsuit.SUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaDevil In The DormThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. View Shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that

will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. From the fairways at Augusta to the courtroom, Tiger Woods, one of the greatest golfers of all times sued by his ex-girlfriend for $30 million. as she claims sexual harassment after their messy breakup. We look at the five most shocking revelations from Erica Herman's complaint. I'm Ann Janette Levy and welcome to Law and Crime's Sidebar podcast.

Erica Herman and Tiger Woods dated for just about six years. They broke up last year. And if you look at the complaint that Erica Herman filed against Tiger Woods, you can tell that she was clearly blindsided by their relationship ending. Herman has asked a judge to let her out of a non-disclosure agreement she signed in August of 2017 so she can speak freely about their relationship. The relationship is a bit messy. Herman worked for Woods at his restaurant in Florida when the two started dating. According to court papers, Herman's NDA was tied to her employment and her relationship with Woods.

Woods's lawyers say Herman is now a jilted lover who just wants to be in the spotlight. On July 13th of 2017, Herman wrote to Woods as attorney and said she was concerned she might end up jobless and heartbroken in her 40s if Woods ended their relationship five or ten years down the road. The two had previously agreed that any disputes between them would be handled in arbitration behind closed doors. Judge Elizabeth Metzger seemed skeptical of Herman's claims during a hearing this week and asked whether the contract was valid on its face. Judge Metzger said she would issue a decision about the suit and whether or not to grant Woods' request to dismiss it at a later date. Joining me to discuss this entire messy affair between Tiger Woods and Erica Herman is Dan Lust. He specializes in sports law. He's also a professor of sports law at New York Law School and at Fordham University.

Kind of a Renaissance guy here really into the sports law, even though this is kind of like sports relationship. breaking up law. Dan, welcome to sidebar. Thanks for coming on. I'm not sure how many people knew that sports law was taught at law schools, but I do law schools. Yes, I'm happy to be on. I certainly didn't, but hey, you know, it's an area of the law, right? It's not so different than like not-for-profit law. We're just dealing with sports entity sports clientele. Yes, definitely an interesting practice area. Yeah, definitely. So let's dive right into this. We have several claims that Erica Herman has made against Tiger Woods. One of them is that she's saying, he sexually harassed her because she was an employee of his at his restaurant when they started

dating. And she's claiming, oh, he forced me to sign this NDA to date him. And if I didn't sign it, I was going to lose my job. So it's technically sexually harassment. So your thoughts on that? I'm not sure. I mean, listen, we need to know more of the allegations, right? That's also part of it. She's claiming to be bound by an NDA. So she's kind of been hesitant to say exactly what occurred in this kind of seven-year relationship between 2015 and 2022. But when you tell you, me that someone asked someone to sign an NDA, they were, you know, having a relationship with their boss while employed at a restaurant that they owned. It's the Woods Juniper restaurant in Florida. You know, that, it doesn't, at least on its face, scream to me like

traditional sexual assault and sexual harassment. In 2023, you can have certainly a number of types of sexual harassment. But, you know, it's really going to come down to the underlying, you know, duress here. Was this really kind of pressure from a sexual standpoint, from an employment standpoint? It's a mix of the two. But yeah, I'm not, it doesn't scream to me like our traditional sexual harassment, just makes it a little bit of a horror case to prove from Erica Herman's standpoint. And I think about it like this, Dan. So she's an employee. She starts dating her boss. They're in a consensual relationship. But somewhere along the line, she's asked to sign an NDA. And so that's pretty common with workplaces, not so common in relationships where you're

dating somebody. So an NDA, it's not unusual for somebody to sign an NDA when you're working for them. So she started dating him and dated him for years. So this was consensual. Yeah, it was consensual. And I think if you really look at the terms of that NDA, which I think was signed in 2017, it was kind of like a hybrid relationship slash continued employment NDA. So it's kind of odd, right? I've heard of NDAs. I've heard of kind of private relationship of NDAs. Certainly we've heard of employment NDAs. But to combine the two and one seems odd to say the least. So, you know, why this NDA is important here, right? It's a lawsuit. I'm sure we'll get into it about a kind of like a wrongful eviction. But, you know, she wants to be able to, as part of her

case, speak about what happened during the course of their relationship. This NDA obviously doesn't let her speak about that. And it also kicks all disputes between the parties into mandatory arbitration. So the only reason that this NDA might not be valid here, right? There's only one. It has nothing to do with Erica Herman or Tiger Woods. It has to do with the President of United States, Joe Biden, who in December of 2022 passed something called the Speak Out Act, which allowed victims of sexual assault and sexual harassment. sexual abuse generally, to get out of kind of one-sided NDA agreements and be able to speak out about these kind of allegations. So Erica Herman specifically here is claiming sexual harassment,

sexual abuse, and saying, I am a victim, I need to be able to get out of this NDA and be able to speak freely about what happened between me and my former partner. So that's where this gets a little interesting here, right? What could, and again, we're not here to speculate, but the fact that she's claiming that at some form of sexual harassment, she believes it rise to the statutory definition. I have not seen that yet, but that's her burden here, of course. Right, of course. Let's go back to the arbitration piece of this. When she enters into this relationship with Tiger Woods and it's serious, they're living together, she agrees that any disputes about their relationship would be handled in confidential binding arbitration. Obviously, a lot of people who've dated people probably

haven't experienced that type of requirement for dating somebody or engaging in a relationship. Your thoughts on that, because is she essentially violating all of this by filing this paperwork in court? Because she's supposed to be doing this all behind closed doors. It's getting close. I mean, I think the only real indication that there is some sexual harassment involved is literally like a box that was checked. Does this allegation, does this claim involve sexual harassment? So maybe, right? There's certainly an argument that she's gotten pretty close to it.

You know, I've, I'm a happily married man. I've never had anyone in my life have to sign an NDA before date. I'm sure we don't know most people. I don't know anyone that's done that. But then again, right, Tiger Woods is a different animal. Tiger Woods has had documentaries made about him, his paparazzi following him over the course of decades of his life in the public realm.

So it's certainly not going to shock anyone that he's requiring someone to sign an NBA. I work with a lot of entertainers and athletes, right? The NDA is pretty common, even for something as simple as like workers that are at your house, you're going to make them sign an NDA just in case they see something they're not supposed to see. So I'm not so shocked by that part. I do think it was a little odd that there is this, again, this hybrid NDA, which seems very unique, right? It's one thing for a celebrity to date someone at their, you know, their place of employment or a business that they own.

But to make one NDA that kind of seems to be like, hey, I'm giving this NDA in consideration for the ability to spend time with Tiger Woods in a private capacity and for continued employment. That seems like not just kind of poor drafting. That doesn't really make sense to me. Maybe make it specialized to the relationship, but why tie it to the employment? That seems kind of, I don't know, that doesn't seem right to me. Yeah, you would think a lawyer might have raised a red flag to Tiger Woods about that, but maybe they did. Maybe they didn't, but it seems a little odd nonetheless. Another kind of weird claim in this by Erica Herman is that she says a lawyer broke up with her on Woods's behalf at the airport after telling her they were going on a trip to the Bahamas.

That's kind of, I'm not sure that's the best way to handle a breakup if that's the way it happened. I think the funniest part about that. Not that any of this, naturally funny, but this guy calls himself Ray Donovan with the pen, the alleged lawyer here. I guess that's a slogan on his website. Yeah, I mean, listen, maybe it's the non-legal advice, but if you're going to break up with someone, do it face-to-face, you're going to fire someone, you know, do it face-to-face. Don't send an intermediary after the person has packed a bag. And it just, it looks odd, right? It looks like almost like one of those, and this is, you know, part of the underlying allegation, almost helps like a, it seems like a self-help eviction, right? That you've lured. someone out of the house. You told them a private plane is waiting for them to take them to the Bahamas. And then when they try to get back to the house, they've been informed that they're locked out. They can't retrieve any of their belongings. And that's it, have a nice day. That whole part to me kind of doesn't smell right. Tiger Woods, who's, you know, he's very kind of guarded about his public image, his public perception. To do that to some that you've had, again, allegedly, right? A seven-year relationship with just doesn't strike anyone the right way. And now look

what it's resulted in. So in terms of like liability avoidance, lawsuit avoidance, that certainly wasn't the right way to handle it. There was another claim in here by Erica Herman that she is claiming that Tiger Woods, who is literally multi-millionaire, maybe a billionaire, I don't know, a gazillionaire, stole $40,000 from her. Yeah, I guess that's part of the allegation, right? When she was trying to get back access to the house, claim that she was given certain belongings, but what was missing is $40,000 that allegedly belonged to her. So as you kind of point out, right, Tiger Woods, who is, you know, I don't know if he's quite a billionaire status. It wouldn't shock me if he was, but definitely

100 millionaire status, again, all allegations. But the fact that she's alleging that $40,000 was missing, and this is now someone who, I believe, is no longer working at the restaurant. You know, she said kind of, at least in some of these court filings, that she was worried about being jobless and being able to support herself post-relationship with Tiger Woods. The fact that she's saying that $40,000 was taken from her, right, is interesting, right? Tiger is kind of kicking someone to the curve. He doesn't necessarily need the $40,000. Again, we'll figure out where the truth is between whose $40,000 that was. But I did find that allegation to be particularly, we'll say petty.

I think that's the right term here. Another one, this is a big one. Erica Herman says, because she had this oral tenancy agreement with Tiger Woods, I guess that, hey, you can live here. She's claiming that she could live there for years, I guess, you know, after the relationship ended. She's claiming that as well. She says because of this agreement, she's entitled to $30 million.

That is a lot of money, Dan. That's a lot of money. That's more than $40,000. That's quite a lot more than $40,000. Yeah, I mean, that's the underlying case here. So I guess we kind of parse this out. The first case here is basically for like a wrongful eviction that she's saying that she was being able or promised to being able to live in that, you know, the residents together,

the joint, I don't even say joint residents, Tiger Woods residents for a number of years. And she's saying, well, the ability to live in that. at home, I think it was supposed to be 11 years total, so an additional four or five, that that was worth $30 million. So her being deprived of that, she wants the difference between whatever she was evicted and whenever she was promised. You know, the problem with that, just for, you know, fun kind of law school issue spotting fact pattern is like statute of frauds, right, doesn't allow contracts that are incapable of

being performed in one year to be oral. They have to be in writing in some way, she performed. So the fact that she's alleging a multi-year oral tendency that somehow entitles her to $30 million. Sure. If you have a written contract, maybe I get that. Maybe you're entitled to the remainder of the lease term if you're evicted, sure. But here it seems like a stretch, right? Those are property rights afforded to tenants that by and large are protected by written agreements, lease agreements. This is an oral tendency with not a tenant, right, with a girlfriend. And obviously someone that he was cohabitating with a serious girlfriend, but by legal definition,

a girlfriend until there's some type of legal document that changes her name. This is still Tiger Woods home. understanding she wasn't on the deed or anything like that. And short of that, I'm not sure what law she's aware of that would entitle her to, again, even assuming it wasn't, you know, an oral tendency, which I don't think is enforceable, the remainder of that term when Tiger Woods was basically inviting her to live in his house, that seems odd. So either she's an invitee or she's a girlfriend, definitely not a tenant by any stretch of the definition. And, you know, something that's interesting about this is that she, there was an email exchange between her. her and Tiger Woods lawyer back in 2017.

And she's saying my only concerns if by chance T.W does something that brings our relationship to an end, would I automatically lose my job? I don't have any problem with what's in the document because I wouldn't go public or use anything I know to hurt him or the kids. But with my whole life in his hands, now I want to know some kind of control over my future in the business. If something happened five to 10 years down the road, I don't want to be in my 40s, heartbroken and jobless thoughts.

it was almost like she was kind of foreshadowing this that she thought she'd be heartbroken, first of all, you know, what if she wanted to end the relationship? But I find this to be kind of an interesting thing that she's, she was kind of looking down the road and seeing this possibility. Yeah, I felt bad reading that too. I mean, five, ten years down the road is exactly where we are. And she is, right, heartbroken and jobless, so to speak. And again, I'm not sure she's been able to secure different employment. We just know that she's not working at Tiger Woods restaurant, kind of understandably. But I thought the attorney's response on the email chain was kind of telling, right? Like, this is complicated and it could get complicated, but, you know,

to the point you raised earlier, when you enter a relationship with someone that's asking you to sign an NDA early on, when you're getting into a relationship with consensual relationship by all intensive purposes, with someone at your place of employment, like, yeah, it's going to get complicated. That part's not going to shock anybody. You know, and again, maybe like the non-legal analysis here, when you're entering a relationship with someone like Tiger Woods who, you know, has kind of life-changing money. Maybe you kind of look past some of the red flags. Maybe you do.

Maybe you're inclined to sign an NDA. Maybe you're inclined to speak with your boyfriend's lawyer to sign an NDA, which seems so odd. But again, that's what happened here, right? She's alleging $30 million, at least to her, that's the amount that she thought she was gaining by being able to at least live in that house, live that life of luxury. So, you know, maybe it's maybe not applicable here, but right, kind of tongue-in-cheek, right? The assumption of the risk, you kind of know what you're getting into when your

boyfriend hands you an NDA, right? And you have to sign this to be in a relationship with me, right? That's obviously a red flag of all red flags. Yeah, definitely. Well, Dan Lest, a sports law attorney, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it. My pleasure. And that's it for this edition of Law and Crime's Sidebar podcast. You can listen to and download Sidebar on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your podcast. And of course, you can always watch it on Law and Crimes YouTube channel. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy, and we will see you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.