Published September 16, 2026
A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled on September 3, 2026, that Roblox Corporation waived its right to force a child-safety class action into arbitration, affirming a district court's earlier denial of the company's motion to compel. The case, Uhl v. Roblox Corp., was originally filed in California state court in August 2023 by parent Damien Uhl, who alleged Roblox misrepresented the safety protections on its platform; Roblox removed it to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.
The panel — Judges Lee, Bumatay, and Sung — found that Roblox had known since at least 2017 that its terms of service contained an arbitration clause, yet chose to spend nearly a year moving to dismiss the case on the merits before ever raising arbitration. Only after the district court rejected that dismissal bid did Roblox pivot to seeking arbitration. Under Ninth Circuit precedent, that sequence — asking a court to rule on the merits and only falling back on arbitration if the ruling goes badly — satisfies both elements of waiver: knowledge of the right, and intentional acts inconsistent with it.
Judge Bumatay dissented, arguing the majority applied a "newfound waiver rule" that no prior Ninth Circuit case had put defendants on notice of. In his view, Roblox's delay — it said it needed the plaintiff's daughter's account username before it could properly move to compel — looked more like forfeiture than the "intentional relinquishment of a known right" that waiver requires. The majority rejected that framing, noting Roblox's own internal email showed it knew it could have moved to compel without the username all along.
The ruling adds to a run of unfavorable procedural outcomes for Roblox this month, including a Los Angeles County judge's denial of the company's anti-SLAPP motion in a separate child-exploitation suit. More than 180 Roblox-related cases are now coordinated in a federal multidistrict litigation in the Northern District of California, with additional suits from Louisiana, Kentucky, Texas, Florida, and other states. Because the Ninth Circuit's decision is a memorandum disposition, it isn't binding precedent — but it forecloses Roblox's attempt to move this particular case out of open court.
If your child was groomed, contacted, or sexually exploited by a predator through Roblox, see Atumio's Roblox child safety case page for a free eligibility review, or start your case review directly.