She'd already signed away her day in court - then discovery changed everything
An arbitration agreement didn't stop a former chief financial officer (CFO) from taking her sex discrimination and harassment claims to a federal court.
On August 19, 2026, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower-court ruling denying the employer's motion to force the dispute into arbitration.
The decision turned on the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021, known as the EFAA. The law lets workers who allege sexual harassment or assault cancel a predispute arbitration agreement and sue in court instead.
Structure Therapeutics, a clinical drug developer, argued the former CFO had given up that option. She first filed for arbitration in October 2022, raising discrimination, retaliation, and harassment claims tied to her national origin and her status as a domestic violence victim. Over the following year, the two sides held hearings, ran discovery, and fought over it.
Only during that discovery, the court said, did she find evidence that her treatment was based on her sex. She withdrew from arbitration and, in March 2024, filed a sex discrimination and hostile work environment complaint in California state court.
The company said she had spent her single "election" under the EFAA the moment she chose arbitration. The panel disagreed. Because she was not yet alleging sexual harassment when she filed for arbitration, the court held, she had not made an EFAA election then. Her one election came when she took the newly discovered claim to court.
The court also read "sexual harassment" broadly. Under California's Fair Employment and Housing Act, it said, harassing conduct need not be sexual or driven by sexual desire. Treating a worker worse because of her sex can be enough.
Her complaint alleged that the Chief Executive Officer sidelined her from the start and relied on complaints from male bankers that she was, in the filing's words, "too aggressive." It also alleged that after a domestic violence incident left visible facial injuries, he told her she "may be more sensitive to it than others" and repeatedly asked whether she should keep the CFO job. The court accepted those allegations as true only to decide whether she had plausibly stated a claim. They have not been proven.
One judge dissented, arguing that once the executive chose arbitration and litigated there for a year, she had waived the right to change course.
