Roblox argues 8-year-old’s ‘agree to terms’ click should dismiss teen suicide lawsuit

A grieving family is suing Roblox over their 13-year-old daughter’s suicide – and the popular gaming giant is fighting back by citing terms the girl first agreed to when she was just eight years old.

What actually happened

Jaimee Seitz, the mother of 13-year-old Audree Heine from Kentucky, is suing Roblox, claiming that the “digital playground” allowed predators to groom their child, leading her to take her own life one week after her 13th birthday.

The mother’s wrongful-death lawsuit, filed in October 2025, says that Audree began playing Roblox when she was just 8 years old.

By the time she turned 12, Seitz says child predators began reaching out to Audree on the platform despite the platform’s alleged safeguards to protect kids from predators trolling for victims.

A personal journal found by investigators after the suicide detailed claims by the young teen that she was subjected to a “harmful and violent subculture,” glorifying mass shootings and other violent ideologies, the Louisville Courier Journal reported.

The mother also claims that parental controls were on Audree’s account at the time.

Now, Roblox says the lawsuit should be scrapped and instead moved outside of the courtroom and into private arbitration.

The gaming company says Audree forfeited the family’s right to sue in court when she first clicked “agree” to the company’s "Terms of Use" in 2020 – at eight years old.

Roblox faces growing scrutiny

Roblox, of course, has moved to get the case thrown out of court and into private arbitration – a much faster and private process that would essentially allow Roblox to avoid a long-drawn-out public trial.

The Heine’s case would instead be heard by an expert or retired judge; however, the final decision would still be a binding legal agreement.

In its motion to dismiss, Roblox claims the family “waived its right to a trial no less than 28 times,” according to the Courier Journal’s report.

The platform broke down the consent clicks in the filing as follows:

"By creating her Roblox account, by accepting updates to Roblox’s Terms (six times), by using and redeeming Roblox gift cards (twice), and by purchasing Roblox’s virtual currency on Roblox (19 times)."

Another caveat is that, depending on how the court rules on the Roblox request, arbitration could become a major sticking point in how the company defends itself against the wave of litigation it faces.

The barrage of lawsuits against Roblox has now been grouped together in Northern California, where one judge is handling key issues shared across the individual cases, including whether Roblox can force families into arbitration instead of court.

Users slam Roblox over age-8 consent claim

The Roblox-fueled fight and its outrageous reasoning have triggered the ire of social media users worldwide.

“Eight-year-olds are able to sign legally-binding contracts now?” one person asked in a Reddit thread dedicated to the topic.

“Unless they can prove that a parent or legal guardian established the account and personally accepted the contract, I don't see how they can bind this child to their terms,”

this Redditor responded.

“Can [a] child who legally can't consent to a lot of things on their own, consent to terms and conditions they likely didn't understand. Even if they are lying about their age online by using an incorrect birthday,” yet another user questioned.

Other users simply slammed the company and its lawyers for even filing the motion, “Corporate lawyers are truly some of the worst people.”

Another user shot back, describing Roblox CEO and co-founder David Baszucki as “a disgusting human being, a true real-life villain.”

Child safety lawsuits pile up

Ironically, Roblox is already facing more than 175 federal cases involving allegations of child exploitation and harm in the US, and several EU nations have launched investigations over child safety concerns.

US senators Josh Hawley and Dick Durbin also launched another Senate investigation into Roblox's child-safety practices last week. The move comes after Roblox finally rolled out its mandatory age verification and age-based communication requirements worldwide in June.

And earlier this week, Australia’s online safety watchdog came down hard on Roblox for its lackadaisical approach in addressing "child-safety risks. “

"Australia’s eSafety regulator has ordered Roblox to overhaul its child safety measures within 3 months after profiles and friends of potential children were found to be publicly viewable,”

wrote RTC, one of the largest news sources covering Roblox on X.

What’s more, recent testing by the regulatory body found that adults could still “easily send connection requests to young children and interact on forums outside of games without parental consent.”

The eSafety Commissioner is also requiring Roblox to retain a third-party auditor to monitor the effectiveness of the newly imposed safety measures – a first for the Australian agency.

As of March, the number of daily active users on the gaming platform under the age of 16 was listed at roughly 80.6 million – equal to nearly 60% of all 144 million Roblox users worldwide.

Discord and TikTok also fight lawsuit

Roblox isn’t the only platform fighting the Seitz’s wrongful-death lawsuit. Discord and TikTok have also been named as defendants, with all three companies filing motions to dismiss the case earlier this month.

Discord is making a similar arbitration argument, claiming Audree agreed to its terms at least five times - entering an adult birthdate when she registered for Discord – also at the age of eight.

Discord, in a statement sent to the Courier Journal, says it is “deeply committed to user safety,” reiterating that “Our terms require all users to be at least 13 to use Discord… striving to enable organic, real-time interaction and connection.”

"We use a combination of advanced technology and trained safety teams to proactively find and remove content that violates our policies. We maintain strong systems intended to prevent the spread of sexual exploitation and grooming on our platform,” it said.

Meanwhile, TikTok and its parent company ByteDance argue that the platform did not “proximately cause” Audree’s death – meaning it was not directly responsible for her suicide.