In Edwards v. CVS Health Corporation, 1:23-cv-04340 (CM), 2024 WL 308093 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 25, 2024), the court, inter alia, granted defendant’s motion to compel arbitration of plaintiff’s sex-based hostile work environment claim asserted under the NYC Human Rights Law.
In sum, the court held that the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Harassment Act (EFAA) did not apply, because plaintiff’s claims accrued after that statute’s enactment.
From the decision:
Plaintiff in her Complaint alleges hostile work environment/harassment in violation of the NYCHRL. Compl. at 12, Fourth Count. While the EFAA prohibits the enforcement of forced arbitration clauses in employment agreements for claims of sexual harassment, it also clearly states that it only applies to a “dispute or claim that arises or accrues on or after the date of enactment of this Act.” Pub. L. No. 117-90, Section 3 (emphasis added). As such, the law only applies to those claims that arise on or after March 3, 2022 – the date of enactment of the EFAA. Since Plaintiff’s last day of work at CVS was January 2, 2020 and she was fired in May 2020, see Complaint ¶¶ 71, 76, her claims in the Complaint – which are predicated on her termination from CVS and on conduct that allegedly occurred prior thereto – are not covered by the EFAA, and are not precluded from arbitration by the EFAA.
Case law in the Second Circuit makes clear that the EFAA applies only to claims that accrued on or after March 3, 2022 (i.e., the day President Biden signed the EFAA into law) and that the EFAA does not have retroactive effect. Johnson v. Everyrealm, Inc., 657 F. Supp. 3d 535, 550 (S.D.N.Y. 2023) (“The EFAA applies only to claims that accrued on or after March 3, 2022, the day President Biden signed the EFAA into law; it does not have retroactive effect.”) (collecting cases); Walters v. Starbucks Corp., 623 F. Supp. 3d 333, 337 (S.D.N.Y. 2022) (“Walters’s claims in this lawsuit are not covered by [the EFAA] because each claim arose or accrued before March 3, 2022. Each of Walters’s claims accrued at the time she experienced discrimination, harassment, or retaliation, and at the latest by December of 2021, when she left her job.”). Therefore, the Arbitration Agreement encompasses Plaintiff’s Fourth Count.
Plaintiff’s only response to this is that she commenced her lawsuit after the effective date of the EFAA, so it should apply to her claims. She urges that the word “dispute” means “litigates” or “brings a case.” That is the very argument rejected in the cases cited above. Johnson, 657 F. Supp. 3d at 550; Walters, 623 F. Supp. 3d at 337-38.
The court concluded that “in the absence of any other consideration, this is a no-brainer – the Plaintiff should be ordered to arbitrate her claims and this case stayed pending the result of that arbitration.”