Tiger Woods’ ex-girlfriend Erica Herman has dropped her $30 million lawsuit which claimed he violated an oral tenancy agreement following their split.
Herman, 39, dismissed the case pending the result of her latest appeal of a judge’s order to throw out a different lawsuit she filed to nullify a 2017 nondisclosure agreement she signed with Woods, 47, according to documents obtained by the New York Post on Tuesday, July 18. That case remains pending.
Herman first sued Woods’ trust —the titleholder on his home — in October 2022, claiming that he violated the oral agreement that stated she could live at his residence for a “certain duration of time” in exchange for performing “valuable services.”
In documents obtained by Us Weekly at the time, Herman alleged that she was “locked out” of the home “by trickery” when there were five years left of the pair’s oral agreement. She claimed that $30 million represented “the reasonable rental value” of the property for the remaining five years of the alleged agreement.
Woods’ trust, for their part, filed documents to dismiss Herman’s complaint in November 2022. The entity claimed in their response that per Herman’s NDA with Woods, she was required to resolve “any and all disputes, claims or controversies” with the golfer through confidential arbitration.
“By suing the Trust rather than Mr. Woods, Ms. Herman seeks to evade her obligation to adjudicate her claims in a confidential arbitration and, instead, seeks to gain leverage by litigating her disputes with Mr. Woods in a public forum,” the documents read. The Trust also denied the existence of an oral tenancy agreement.
While a hearing for Herman’s lawsuit regarding the oral tenancy was initially scheduled for August, a court document filed on June 29 announced it had been canceled due to Herman’s dismissal of the suit.
“The Plaintiff, Erica Herman, by and through her undersigned counsel, hereby dismisses without prejudice her Complaint, filed on October 26, 2022, pending resolution of the appeal in Herman v. Woods and determination of whether her claims are subject to arbitration,” the filings read, per The Post.
Days before the lawsuit’s dismissal, Herman filed her second appeal after her case seeking to lift her NDA with Woods on the grounds that the athlete harassed her was thrown out. In May, Florida judge Elizabeth Metzger deemed the sexual misconduct claims “vague and threadbare,” according to documents obtained by Us at the time.
Earlier that month, Herman filed court documents that claimed Woods sexually harassed her shortly after she began working at his Florida restaurant in 2014. Her attorneys alleged that Woods “forced her to sign an NDA” in 2017 or else she would “be fired from her job.” The twosome were already in a romantic relationship at that point, but the lawyers pointed out in the filing that “a boss imposing different work conditions on his employee because of their sexual relationship is sexual harassment.”
Herman went on to claim that Woods sexually harassed her again in 2022 when he allegedly kicked her out of their home. “The landlord made the availability of her housing conditional on her having sexual relationship with a co-tenant,” Herman’s attorneys alleged in the court filing. “That conduct amounts to sexual harassment under federal and Florida fair housing laws.”
Woods, for his part, called Herman “a jilted ex-girlfriend who wants to publicly litigate specious claims in court, rather than honor her commitment to arbitrate disputes in a confidential arbitration proceeding,” in his response, adding that the Speak Out Act —which protects victims of sexual harassment and assault and was cited by Herman in her filing — was “a transparent abuse of the judicial process that undermines the purpose of the federal statute and those whom the statute seeks to protect.”
Woods and Herman dated for five years before their messy 2022 split A source exclusively told Us in March that Woods and Herman experienced a “breakdown in their relationship” and clashed over time and money,” which ultimately led to their breakup.
“Erica thought Tiger was never at home, and Tiger thought Erica was spending too much and living too lavish of a lifestyle,” the insider told Us, noting that the former couple’s romance “started out very strong.”
Woods previously made headlines in 2009 when he was caught cheating on then-wife Elin Nordegren with several women. The duo — who share two children — finalized their divorce in 2010. Woods later sought treatment for sex addiction following the scandal.
