Roblox argues 8-year-old waived right to take company to court by checking a box

Roblox is arguing that a girl who began using the platform at eight years old agreed to give up her right to a jury trial by accepting its Terms of Use, as the company fights a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by her mother.

Jaimee Seitz filed the lawsuit after her daughter, Audree Heine, died by suicide in December 2024, one week after turning 13. The case alleges Audree was exposed to harmful and violent online communities through Roblox before interactions continued on Discord and TikTok.

Audree began using Roblox and Discord when she was eight, according to the complaint. Seitz says she placed parental controls on her daughter’s accounts and believed the platforms’ safety measures would protect her.

However, the lawsuit alleges Audree encountered members of an online community that glorified violence, self-harm and mass shooters through Roblox. It claims those interactions later continued on Discord, where Audree was subjected to further manipulation and social pressure.

Now, Roblox is arguing that the case should instead be handled through arbitration because Audree repeatedly accepted the company’s terms.

Roblox says Audree agreed to its terms 28 times

As first reported by The Courier Journal, Roblox filed a motion to compel arbitration on August 7 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky.

The company claims Audree and her family waived the right to a trial “no less than 28 times” through activity associated with her Roblox account.

Roblox broke that figure down as the creation of Audree’s account, six acceptances of updated Terms of Use, two uses or redemptions of Roblox gift cards, and 19 purchases of the platform’s Robux virtual currency.

“Roblox made the Terms plain and Audree repeatedly manifested her assent,” the company’s attorneys argued in the filing.

The dispute centers on an arbitration provision contained in Roblox’s terms. If the court agrees with Roblox, the claims covered by that agreement would be handled through private arbitration rather than a public jury trial.

That is particularly significant because Audree was eight years old when she first began using Roblox. Seitz rejected the company’s argument.

“She was a child, she didn’t understand arbitration,” she said, adding that Audree also did not understand contracts or what accepting the terms could mean years later.

The family’s lawyers had already anticipated a dispute over arbitration when the original lawsuit was filed in October 2025.

The complaint states that Audree “was a minor at the time of using Defendants’ apps” and argues that she therefore lacked the legal capacity to enter into a binding agreement. Seitz also expressly disaffirmed any alleged contract containing an arbitration agreement on behalf of her daughter’s estate.

The judge has not yet ruled that Roblox’s arbitration agreement is enforceable against Audree or her family. Roblox’s position is an argument made in its motion, while Seitz disputes that a contract accepted by her daughter as a child can prevent the case from proceeding in court.

Discord has raised a similar defense, saying Audree accepted its terms at least five times and entered an adult birthdate when registering for an account despite being eight years old at the time.

Discord says its terms require users to be at least 13 and told the outlet that it uses technology and trained safety teams to identify and remove content that violates its policies.

TikTok, which was added as a defendant after the initial lawsuit was filed against Roblox and Discord, has separately argued that its platform did not “proximately cause” Audree’s death.

The allegations against Roblox come as the company faces a wider fight over whether child-safety lawsuits should be heard in court. Dexerto previously reported that Roblox was seeking to move more than 150 federal cases involving allegations of child exploitation and harm into arbitration.

Scrutiny has continued in Congress as well. On August 13, Senators Josh Hawley and Dick Durbin announced that the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism had opened an investigation into child safety on Roblox.

The senators cited data showing Roblox submitted 65,381 reports of suspected child sexual exploitation to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in 2025 and ordered the company to preserve records related to child safety and abuse.

For Seitz, however, the immediate fight is over whether her daughter’s acceptance of Roblox’s terms as a child can keep the family’s case away from a jury.

“If these companies believe they did nothing wrong, then they should defend it in court,” she said. “Do not hide behind an agreement that an 8-year-old never understood.”