The court concluded Section 402(a) of the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Harassment Act of 2021 (EFAA), rendered arbitration agreements unenforceable as to all causes of action in a multi-claim dispute where plaintiff has pled a viable claim relating to sexual harassment. In doing so, the court rejected the trial courts' decisions to bar from arbitration only those claims for which the underlying conduct related specifically to sexual harassment. Instead, the court relied on the text of the EFAA that bars from arbitration a "case which . . . relates to . . . the sexual harassment dispute," and adopted the majority view of published federal and state court opinions that have considered the issue.
The court agreed, however, with both courts' decisions that, through the indulgent lens of a Rule 4:6-2(e) application, as pled plaintiffs' sexual harassment claims are not time-barred.