Tiger Woods girlfriend Erica Herman wants NDA nullified amid breakup

Comment on this story

COMMENTARY

Tiger Woods’ ex-girlfriend has asked a Florida judge to release her from a nondisclosure agreement she signed with the golf star in an escalating legal dispute that began when he barred her from his home last fall.

Woods’ lawyers have argued in court that Erica Herman, who he dated for six years, is barred from suing him because of the NDA, which requires them to resolve all disputes in confidential arbitration.

In a complaint filed Monday, Herman said the NDA is unenforceable because of a federal law that says alleged victims of sexual assault and harassment cannot be barred from filing lawsuits.

Herman’s complaint, first reported by TMZ, did not elaborate on whether she has made, or would make, such allegations against Woods. Her attorney, Benjamin T. Hodas, did not respond Wednesday to a message seeking comment.

Woods’ agent, Mark Steinberg, did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment. The lawyer representing Woods in one of the lawsuits, JB Murray, said he was “not at liberty to comment”.

The court battle, which began quietly as an apparent landlord-tenant dispute in which Herman sued a trust without naming its famous landlord, sheds remarkable light on the kind of collusion reached by rich and powerful men in their personal relationships.

And for Woods, years removed from scandals involving serial cheating and driving under the influence of prescription drugs, the lawsuit has the potential to restore an unwanted grip on his private life.

In October, Herman sued Jupiter Island Irrevocable Homestead Trust, which is controlled by Woods, in civil district court in Martin County, Fla. In that lawsuit, Herman — apparently referring to her relationship with Woods — referred to “duties that were performed by, and expected of, [Herman] were extensive and of an extraordinary nature in the light of the general circumstances and environment in which she lived.”

Herman claimed the trust’s “agents” convinced her to “pack a suitcase for a short break and, when she arrived at the airport, told her it was locked out of her residence.”

Martin said the trust’s agents “used a lawyer to confront him with proposals to resolve the wrongdoing they were committing” and refused to allow him to return home. She claimed the agents removed her belongings from her home and “appropriated more than $40,000 in cash belonging to her, making obscene and defamatory allegations about how she got the money.”

The complaint, which was not reported in the media at the time, did not name Woods. But in a filing in response in December, lawyers representing Woods said the golfer lived at home with his children and argued her complaint was invalid because of an NDA mandating that their disputes be handled confidentially .

The Woods’ attorneys revealed they were already in an arbitration dispute, with multiple potential witnesses, over Herman’s eviction claims. They argued that because her claims “arise out of the breakdown of her relationship with Mr. Woods,” she was in violation of the NDA by filing a lawsuit in a public forum.

That court filing included a largely redacted copy of the NDA, signed by Woods and Herman.

Herman has been a part of Woods’ public life amid his comeback from multiple injuries in recent years, including a 2021 car accident near Los Angeles that left him with multiple fractures in his right leg. and threatened to end his golf career.