Key Points

  • The Eighth District Court of Appeals held that Jessica Warren's amended complaint adequately pleaded sex discrimination, hostile work environment harassment and retaliation under R.C. 4112.02 under Ohio's notice-pleading standard.
  • The court held that Ohio has not adopted the federal Twombly/Iqbal plausibility standard, and that the defendants' arguments on corrective action, severity and causation are matters for a developed record rather than a motion to dismiss.
  • Following its decision in Hansbrough v. Marshall Dennehey, P.C., 2026-Ohio-657, the court held that a complaint that survives Ohio pleading review states a nonfrivolous sexual harassment claim covered by the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act.
  • Because the EFAA renders a predispute arbitration agreement unenforceable as to the plaintiff's entire case, the court held that Warren's breach-of-contract and related claims may not be stayed pending arbitration.
  • The court reversed the trial court's dismissal and stay and remanded for further proceedings.

An Ohio appeals court on Thursday reinstated sex discrimination, sexual harassment and retaliation claims brought by the former general counsel of aerospace parts maker TransDigm Group Inc., and it held that a federal law bars the company from forcing any part of her lawsuit into arbitration.

A three-judge panel of the Eighth District Court of Appeals reversed a trial court that had dismissed Jessica Warren's discrimination claims and paused her remaining contract claims pending arbitration. Administrative Judge Michelle J. Sheehan wrote for the court. Judges Michael John Ryan and Deena R. Calabrese concurred.

The ruling turns on the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act, known as the EFAA, a federal law that lets a person alleging sexual harassment or assault choose court over arbitration even after signing an arbitration agreement before the dispute arose. The panel held that once Warren adequately pleaded a harassment claim, the law voided TransDigm's arbitration clause for her entire case. "Warren's entire case is covered by the EFAA and not subject to arbitration," Judge Sheehan wrote. "This includes her breach-of-contract claims set forth in the complaint."

TransDigm hired Warren in December 2018 as associate general counsel and promoted her in February 2023 to general counsel, chief compliance officer and secretary under a written employment agreement. Her lawsuit also names Michael Lisman, a former co-chief operating officer who became TransDigm's president and chief executive in October 2025.

The amended complaint describes incidents at three of the company's annual management meetings. In 2021, an operating unit president followed Warren to her hotel room and tried to kiss her. In 2023, another operating president insisted on dancing with her until a male executive intervened. At the 2024 meeting, a third operating unit president choked her from behind, knocked her hat off, kissed her face and smacked her hip and backside in front of other employees, the complaint alleges.

Warren reported the 2021 and 2024 incidents, and TransDigm fired both men. Each received "a substantial severance package despite the fact that he was terminated for engaging in sexual assault and harassment," the complaint alleges. After the 2024 incident, Lisman asked Warren what she had done to cause the assault and described the man as "a good president." Then-CEO Kevin Stein told her she was "making a mountain out of a molehill," according to the complaint.

The complaint also alleges that Lisman, during Warren's interview for the general counsel post, "specifically asked her whether she could balance motherhood with her responsibilities and expressed doubt as to whether a woman with a family could effectively serve as General Counsel." In July 2025, Stein told Warren that she would be replaced by "an objectively less qualified male," the complaint alleges. Separation talks failed, and TransDigm tried to start arbitration in August 2025.

Warren then sued in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas. The trial court dismissed her discrimination, harassment and retaliation counts and her request for a declaration that the case was not arbitrable, and it stayed the remaining counts pending arbitration.

On appeal, the panel applied Ohio's notice-pleading standard, under which a complaint needs only enough facts to give the defendant fair notice of the claim. Judge Sheehan noted that Ohio has not adopted the stricter federal plausibility test of the U.S. Supreme Court's Twombly and Iqbal decisions. Quoting the district's precedent, she wrote that a "motion to dismiss is viewed with disfavor and should rarely be granted."

TransDigm and Lisman had argued that Warren "failed to plead any causal connection between her gender and her termination." Assuming the complaint's facts are true, Judge Sheehan wrote, "a reasonable inference could be made that the reason for Warren's removal was based on her sex."

The defendants also argued that firing the two men was appropriate corrective action and that the remaining conduct was not severe or pervasive enough to support a hostile work environment claim, which Ohio courts recognize when harassment based on sex is severe or pervasive enough to affect the conditions of employment. The panel held that those defenses "fall outside the pleading standard and are better left resolved under a more fully developed record."

On retaliation, the defendants contended that too much time separated Warren's complaints from the actions taken against her. The panel held that she did not need to meet that evidentiary standard at the pleading stage. "While we offer no opinion on the substantive merits of Warren's claims, we do find that the facts alleged in her complaint were sufficient to satisfy Civ.R. 8(A)'s liberal pleading standard to support an allegation for retaliation," Judge Sheehan wrote.

Warren's employment agreement provides that "[a]ny dispute or controversy arising under or in connection with this Agreement shall be settled exclusively by arbitration." The panel acknowledged Ohio's policy favoring arbitration but held that the federal statute carves "out an exception to the general public policy favoring arbitration."

Under the Eighth District's own earlier decision in Hansbrough v. Marshall Dennehey, P.C., a court decides whether the federal law applies by testing the complaint under Ohio's ordinary pleading rules. Because Warren's harassment claims survived that test, the panel held that they were "by definition nonfrivolous" and covered by the statute. Quoting Hansbrough, the court wrote that "if a plaintiff properly invokes the EFAA, an arbitration agreement is unenforceable as to a plaintiff's entire 'case,' not merely a plaintiff's 'claims' of sexual assault or sexual harassment."

That reading reached the counts the trial court had stayed, including Warren's breach-of-contract claim, which seeks to enforce TransDigm's obligation to pay her through the termination date in her notice.

Lawyers for Warren included Richard C. Haber of Haber LLP. TransDigm was represented by Daniel M. Kavouras of Baker & Hostetler LLP and by lawyers from Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP. Gair Gallo Eberhard LLP represented Lisman.

The appeals court reversed the trial court's judgment and remanded the case to the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas for further proceedings. It also taxed the costs of the appeal to TransDigm and Lisman.