Judge sends former Google chief's spying, sexual assault lawsuit to arbitration
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A lawsuit filed by a former girlfriend and business partner of tech billionaire Eric Schmidt accusing him of sexual assault was sent to arbitration this week by a Los Angeles judge.Michelle Ritter, 32, of Los Angeles, alleged that a 2022 federal law inspired by the #MeToo movement intended to end forced arbitration of sexual assault and harassment claims allowed her to have her case heard in open court.Superior Court Judge Michael Small disagreed, ruling that the law did not apply because a financial settlement and arbitration agreement Ritter and Schmidt signed in December 2024 was entered into after the alleged sexual wrongdoing — not before as legally required.Ritter filed a lawsuit in November that alleged Schmidt, a former chief executive and chairman of Google, “forcibly raped” her while on a yacht off the coast of Mexico in 2021.She also claimed they had sex without her consent during the 2023 Burning Man festival in Nevada.She further alleged that Schmidt had built a “backdoor” to Google servers with a team of company engineers that allowed him to spy on her and anyone with a Google account.Schmidt has denied the claims.Ritter argued that the alleged digital surveillance of her electronic devices, as well as surveillance by private investigators, after she signed the 2024 agreement also amounted to sexual harassment.However, the judge said the alleged surveillance did not “rise to the level of actionable sexual assault or harassment so as to trigger” the 2022 law.In an interview, Ritter called the ruling “problematic,” saying the surveillance was an extension of her earlier alleged sexual assault and harassment.
“This wouldn’t have been happening otherwise,” she said.Schmidt’s legal team lauded the judge’s decision Monday, calling it a “cogent analysis of the nuanced issues necessary to reach the correct outcome and compel arbitration.”R...