In Polen v. API Group Life Safety USA, LLC, No. 3:25-CV-1196-SI, 2025 WL 3251349 (D. Or. Nov. 21, 2025), the court broadly interpreted the (“EFAA”), and denied defendant’s motion to compel arbitration.
The court summarized the facts as follows:
Polen alleges that early in her employment she disclosed to Noblin that Polen was the victim of ongoing domestic violence and requested reasonable accommodations for her safety. Polen was sexually assaulted by her ex-partner in late October 2024. On November 12, 2024, Polen reported to Noblin that Polen’s ex-partner had appeared at her house the night before, and Polen requested to work from home for her safety. Noblin responded by expressing concerns about Polen’s attendance. On November 28, 2024, Polen’s ex-partner again sexually assaulted Polen. She alleges that she reported the incident to Noblin the next day. Polen also alleges that on December 3, 2024, she notified Noblin that Polen was moving residences due to safety concerns. The next day Polen disclosed to Noblin that Polen was pregnant. Polen alleges that on December 16, 2024, she reported to Noblin that Polen may have suffered a miscarriage and requested a pregnancy-related accommodation. API terminated Polen’s employment the next day, December 17, 2024. (Paragraphing altered.)
Here, the defendant argued that plaintiff’s claims are related to her employment and thus subject to the arbitration agreement. While plaintiff did not dispute the agreement’s general validity or applicability of the agreement, she argued that the case is exempt from arbitration under the EFAA because her claims for discrimination against a victim of domestic violence and failure to accommodate a victim of domestic violence are “sexual assault disputes” under the EFAA, and thus that statute applies.
In response, defendant argued that the EFAA only applies to persons who have been sexually assaulted or harassed in the workplace and that in order for the EFAA to apply defendant’s conduct must have caused the sexual assault.
The court, construing the EFAA, sided with the plaintiff.
Initially, the court explained its determination by reference to the text of the statute, without considering its legislative history:
API argues that a defendant’s conduct must cause the sexual assault for the EFAA’s exception to apply and that the assault must have occurred in the workplace. That, however, is not what the plain text of the EFAA provides. The EFAA exception to predispute arbitration agreements “shall” apply when any “person alleging conduct constituting a … sexual assault dispute” elects to file a case in federal court that “relates to the sexual assault dispute.” See 9 U.S.C. § 402(a). This provision can only be understood with a proper reading of the defined term “sexual assault dispute.”
A “sexual assault dispute” is “a dispute involving a nonconsensual sexual act or sexual contact, as such terms are defined in section 2246 of title 18 or similar applicable Tribal or State law, including when the victim lacks capacity to consent.” Id. § 401(3) (emphasis added). The plain meaning of the term “involving” is broad. See, e.g., United States v. Franklin, 904 F.3d 793, 801 (9th Cir. 2018) (observing, in the criminal law context, that “involving” often connotes ‘includ[ing] (something) as a necessary part or result.’ ” (alteration in original) (quoting New Oxford Am. Dictionary 915 (3d ed. 2010))); see also Webster’s Third New Int’l Dictionary 1191 (unabridged ed. 1993) (defining “involve” as “to have within or as part of itself: CONTAIN, INCLUDE” and “to have an effect on: concern directly: AFFECT”). A dispute involving sexual assault, therefore, is a dispute that in some way includes or concerns sexual assault.
That plain meaning of the word “involving” is supported by Congress’s use of the word elsewhere in the FAA, and the maxim that “statutory terms should be interpreted, whenever possible, with an eye to intra-statutory consistency.” Pacheco-Camacho v. Hood, 272 F.3d 1266, 1271 (9th Cir. 2001); see also Gonzalez, 151 F.4th at 1085-86 (“Beyond the subsection at issue, [the Court] must also interpret the [statute] to be consistent with itself, as well as with preexisting sections of the statute.”). In Allied-Bruce Terminix, the Supreme Court “examined the … language, background, and structure” of § 2 of the FAA, which applies to “ ‘a contract evidencing a transaction involving commerce.’ ” 513 U.S. 265, 273-74 (1995) (quoting 9 U.S.C. § 2). After doing so, it held “that the word ‘involving’ is broad.” Id.; see also The Citizens Bank v. Alafabco, Inc., 539 U.S. 52, 56 (2003) (stating that the use of “involving commerce … signal[s] the broadest permissible exercise” of Congressional power and makes it “perfectly clear that the FAA encompasses a wider range of transactions than those actually ‘in commerce’—that is, within the flow of interstate commerce” (quotation marks omitted)). Construing the EFAA harmoniously with the preexisting sections of the FAA, the word “involving” in the phrase “dispute involving nonconsensual sexual act or contact” must carry with it a similarly expansive reading. Thus, the EFAA requires only that the dispute itself involve sexual assault or contact—not that the defendant caused or engaged in the sex act.
Further confirming this reading, there is no wording in the definition of “sexual assault dispute” connecting the dispute to the parties’ agreement to arbitrate. The definition does not include any causal link between the defendant and the underlying sexual assault, such as requiring that a plaintiff allege conduct by the defendant that caused or enabled the sexual assault. It also contains no limitation regarding who committed the sexual assault, where it was committed, or when it was committed. And Congress could easily have added any of those limitations. In the subsection immediately preceding the definition of the term “sexual assault dispute,” for example, Congress defined the term “predispute joint-action waiver” by reference to “the parties to the [arbitration] agreement.” Compare 9 U.S.C. §§ 401 (2) and (3). If Congress wanted to limit the definition of “sexual assault dispute” only to those disputes about nonconsensual sexual acts or conduct occurring between parties to an arbitration agreement, it certainly knew how to do so. “Atextual judicial supplementation is particularly inappropriate when … Congress has shown that it knows how to adopt the omitted language or provision.” See Lackey v. Stinnie, 604 U.S. 192, 205 (2025) (alteration in Lackey) (quoting Rotkiske v. Klemm, 589 U.S. 8, 14 (2019)).
Putting that definition in context, if a plaintiff alleges conduct constituting a sexual assault dispute and files a lawsuit, the EFAA exemption will apply so long as the case “relates to the sexual assault dispute.” 9 U.S.C. § 402. “The phrase ‘relating to’ should be construed broadly to mean ‘has a connection with or reference to.’ ” Aloha Islandair Inc. v. Tseu, 128 F.3d 1301, 1302 (9th Cir. 1997) (quoting Morales v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 504 U.S. 374, 383 (1992)); see also Pilot Life Ins. Co. v. Dedeaux, 481 U.S. 41, 47 (1987) (stating, in the context of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, that “the phrase ‘relate to’ was given its broad common-sense meaning, such that a state law ‘relates to’ a benefit plan in the normal sense of the phrase, if it has a connection with or reference to such a plan” (cleaned up)). Thus, Congress’s use of “relates to” extends the EFAA exemption to all cases that have a connection to a dispute that involves (includes or concerns) sexual assault. The statute is unambiguous in requiring only that there be a dispute with the defendant involving a nonconsensual sexual act or contact. Thus, the Court does not consider legislative history.
Applying the EFAA, the court explained:
Polen alleges that she notified API about the sexual assault she suffered and that she was moving her residence because of the sexual violence that she had suffered. Polen also alleges that instead of accommodating her as a victim of sexual violence, API negatively viewed Polen’s absences and late attendance resulting from that sexual violence and eventually fired her.
It is undisputed that no API employee sexually assaulted Polen. Nevertheless, Polen alleges that API improperly caused negative employment repercussions because of her sexual assault. The EFAA broadly defines the type of dispute that falls within its framework as any dispute “involving” an underlying nonconsensual sexual act. Polen alleges a dispute with API that “involves” a sexual assault—that API unlawfully considered her status as a victim of sexual assault against her in her employment. Thus, her claims relating to her status as a victim of sexual violence fall within the unambiguous text of the EFAA.
As to defendant’s argument that plaintiff must plausibly allege a claim falling under the EFAA but failed to do so, the court declined to raise this argument, as it was raised for the first time in reply.
However, were the court to consider defendant’s argument, it found persuasive an opinion emanating from the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, which in turn adopts the reasoning of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York:
Defendant reads a plausibility requirement in the EFAA that is not explicit in the statutory text, see 9 U.S.C. § 402(a), but so do the majority of other district courts that have confronted the issue, see Yost v. Everyrealm, Inc., 657 F. Supp. 3d 563, 585 (S.D.N.Y. 2023) (“[T]he term ‘alleged’ as used in [9 U.S.C.] § 401(4) is best read to implicitly incorporate the plausibility standard.”); Mitchell v. Raymond James & Assocs., Inc., No. 8:23-cv-2341-VMC-TGW, 2024 WL 4486565, at *[6], 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 151960, at *14 (M.D. Fla. Aug. 23, 2024) (collecting cases). The Court instead finds persuasive the reasoning of Diaz-Roa v. Hermes Law, P.C., [757] F. Supp. 3d [498, 533] (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 21, 2024), which concluded that the view that is more faithful to Congress’ language and intent is that a plaintiff need only plead nonfrivolous claims relating to sexual assault or to conduct alleged to constitute sexual harassment, with the sufficiency of those claims to be reserved for proper merits adjudication, be it a motion to dismiss, motion for judgment on the pleadings, motion for summary judgment, or trial.
In sum, the court considered only whether plaintiff “has plead a nonfrivolous claim relating to a dispute involving sexual assault,” and concluded that at this stage of litigation, plaintiff did.