Erica Herman Settlement: Eviction Suit, NDA Appeal, and Outcome

There is no publicly known Erica Herman settlement with Tiger Woods. Herman voluntarily dropped both of the lawsuits she filed against Woods and his trust in 2022 and 2023, and neither ESPN, the Washington Post, nor CNN reported any settlement terms at the time of the dismissals.¹² Whether anything changed hands privately, possibly through the confidential arbitration a Florida judge had ordered, is not known. Both Woods and Herman declined to comment publicly on the outcome.³

How the $30 Million Eviction Suit Ended

Herman’s first lawsuit, filed in October 2022 against the Jupiter Island Irrevocable Homestead Trust, sought more than $30 million. She alleged an oral tenancy agreement had entitled her to live in Woods’ Hobe Sound mansion for 11 years, with roughly five years remaining when the couple broke up.⁴ Her lawyers calculated the damages as the cost of renting a comparable beachfront property for the remainder of that term.¹

Woods denied any oral tenancy existed, and his attorneys argued the dispute had to go to private arbitration under the 2017 nondisclosure agreement Herman had signed. On June 29, 2023, Herman filed to dismiss the $30 million complaint without prejudice. She said the dismissal was tied to the outcome of her separate NDA appeal and to the question of whether her claims had to be arbitrated.¹

Dismissing “without prejudice” left the technical option to refile. As of late 2023, no new complaint has been reported.

How the NDA Lawsuit and Appeal Ended

Herman’s second lawsuit, filed in March 2023 in Florida’s Nineteenth Judicial Circuit, asked the court to declare the 2017 NDA unenforceable.⁵ She relied on the federal Speak Out Act, signed by President Biden on December 7, 2022, which makes predispute nondisclosure and nondisparagement clauses unenforceable when a sexual assault or sexual harassment dispute later arises.³ Her attorney argued that Woods conditioning her employment on signing the NDA while they were in a sexual relationship amounted to harassment.⁶

On May 17, 2023, Circuit Judge Elizabeth Metzger ruled that the NDA appeared valid on its face and sent the matter to arbitration. She called Herman’s harassment allegations “vague and threadbare” and “implausibly pled,” writing that Herman had been given a chance to provide factual specificity and had not done so. The judge left the question of whether the agreement was properly formed for the arbitrator.⁵

Herman appealed. In September 2023, she argued in Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal that Woods had not proven a valid arbitration agreement existed.⁷ Then, on November 10, 2023, she filed to dismiss the appeal, and the court granted the dismissal on November 14, 2023.⁸

The dismissal filing included a formal retraction. Herman stated she “was never a victim of sexual harassment or sexual abuse at the hands of Tiger Woods or any of his agents” and that “it is her position that she never asserted a claim for such.”⁸ The Speak Out Act theory, which the entire NDA challenge had rested on, was gone.

Was Any Money Paid

Nothing in the public record shows a payment. No court filing or news report at the time of either dismissal disclosed a settlement figure, and neither side has publicly confirmed one.¹² The trust reportedly paid for a hotel room for Herman for a brief period after she was locked out of the mansion, but that was in October 2022, well before the litigation began.⁹

Two structural facts explain why the public may never learn more. First, Judge Metzger’s May 2023 ruling pushed the underlying dispute into private arbitration, a forum designed to be confidential. Anything resolved there, including a payment, would not appear on a public docket. Second, the 2017 NDA itself, which Judge Metzger found valid on its face, would bar either side from talking about a private resolution.⁵

Where Things Stand

Both tracks of Herman’s litigation are closed. The eviction claim was dismissed without prejudice in June 2023 and has not been refiled. The NDA claim was pushed into arbitration by the trial court in May 2023, and Herman abandoned her appeal in November 2023 with a statement that she had never made a sexual misconduct claim in the first place.⁸

If a private settlement exists, it lives inside the arbitration process and the NDA. If none exists, Herman walked away with no court-ordered damages and no public compensation from either the trust or Woods personally. On the record available, that is where the matter rests.

1
ESPN. Tiger Woods Ex-Girlfriend Erica Herman Drops $30M Lawsuit
2
Washington Post. Tiger Woods Lawsuit Dropped
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Global News. Tiger Woods Ex-Girlfriend Erica Herman Drops Sexual Assault Allegations NDA Lawsuit
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New York Post. Tiger Woods Ex-Girlfriend Erica Herman Drops $30 Million Lawsuit Against His Estate
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CBS News. Tiger Woods Erica Herman NDA Florida Ruling
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ESPN. Ex-Girlfriend Says Tiger Woods Used Lawyer to Break Up With Her
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Golf Digest. Tiger Woods Erica Herman Drops Sexual Harassment Appeal
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People. Tiger Woods Ex-Girlfriend Erica Herman Drops Sexual Assault Allegations NDA Appeal
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People. Tiger Woods Ex-Girlfriend Drops $30 Million Lawsuit Over Eviction