Posted by Jake Finkel on June 8, 2026

California Employees Can Take Sexual Harassment Claims to Court Even If They Signed an Arbitration Agreement

If you signed an arbitration agreement when you were hired, you might assume it controls how every workplace dispute gets handled. For most claims, it often does. But if your dispute involves workplace sexual harassment or sexual assault, federal law now gives you the choice: your case can go to court or to arbitration, and that choice is yours not your employer’s.
This shift comes from the federal Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act (EFAA), which took effect on March 3, 2022. It amended the Federal Arbitration Act and applies in both state and federal court, including here in California. While California has its own strong employee protections, the rule described here is federal which is why it reaches even employers who think a signed arbitration agreement settles the question.
You Decide Where Your Case Goes
If you have a sexual harassment or sexual assault claim, you are not bound by a pre-dispute arbitration agreement , even one you signed at hiring. You have the right to choose between court and arbitration, and your employer cannot force you into arbitration.
That choice matters. Arbitration is typically private and can limit the evidence you’re able to obtain. Court is public, and it generally gives you full discovery, a public record, and the right to have a jury decide your case.
A Judge (Not an Arbitrator) Decides Whether the Law Applies
Some employers still point to their contract language to argue the case belongs in arbitration. Under the EFAA, that argument has a built-in problem: the statute says a court decides whether the law applies. Even if your agreement says an arbitrator decides everything, including questions about the agreement itself, a judge steps in to decide whether the EFAA governs when sexual harassment or assault is part of the case.
One Valid Harassment Claim Can Keep Your Whole Case in Court
This is one of the most significant features of the law and recent appellate authority has strengthened it. In February 2026, in Bruce v. Adams & Reese, LLP, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit became the first federal appeals court to hold that the EFAA keeps a plaintiff’s entire lawsuit out of arbitration, not just the harassment claim itself. The court reasoned that the word “case” in the statute means the whole civil proceeding. Federal courts in California, New York, and New Jersey have read the protection the same broad way.
In practical terms, that means a lawsuit including a sexual harassment claim may also keep related claims, such as retaliation, discrimination, or wage violations, in court alongside it.
Two important caveats. First, the harassment claim has to be real and plausibly pleaded; courts will not let a thin or tacked-on allegation be used just to escape arbitration. Second, this is a developing area, the Sixth Circuit was the first appellate court to rule this way, and the U.S. Supreme Court has not yet weighed in. The trend is favorable, but it is not yet the final word.
Timing: When Does the Dispute “Arise”?
The EFAA applies to a dispute or claim that arises or accrues on or after March 3, 2022. How that date is measured is genuinely contested, and it often determines whether the law helps you:
  • Conduct that continued past March 2022 is your strongest position. Courts have treated an ongoing hostile work environment as renewing each time a new act of harassment occurs, which can bring the claim within the EFAA’s window.
  • Conduct that occurred only before March 2022 is fact-dependent and far from guaranteed. Some courts hold that a “dispute” arises only when the parties first take opposing positions — which could be after the conduct itself — while others look to when the underlying conduct occurred or the claim accrued and decline to apply the law to purely pre-enactment harassment. There is no settled, employee-wide answer here.
The takeaway is not “you’re automatically covered.” It’s that timing is one of the first things worth analyzing with a lawyer, because the details of when the harassment happened, when you reported it, and when the conflict crystallized can change the outcome.
What You Can Do to Protect Yourself
If you’re facing harassment at work, a few practical steps can help preserve your options:
  • Save anything that documents what happened: texts, emails, and your own contemporaneous notes.
  • Write down dates, the names of any witnesses, and any reports you made at work.
  • Be careful about what you sign, especially around a termination or a severance offer.
  • Before filing certain claims, you may need to obtain a right-to-sue notice from the California Civil Rights Department (for state claims) or the EEOC (for federal claims). An attorney can tell you which applies.
  • Talk to an employment lawyer as early as you can.
Many employees still assume arbitration is unavoidable. For sexual harassment and assault claims, that’s often no longer true  and understanding the choice you have can meaningfully change how your case unfolds.

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