Major online platforms argue a Kentucky mom can’t sue them because her daughter, who died by suicide in 2024, had already waived her rights to do so.
Jaime Seitz filed the wrongful death lawsuit last October. Seitz said her daughter Audree was an “avid Roblox user who relief heavily on the app for social interaction.”
Despite setting parental controls, the then 8-year-old connected with a group that glorifies violence and self-harm on Roblox, with contact moving to Discord and TikTok where adults continued to exploit her “emotional vulnerabilities,” the lawsuit said. Audree died by suicide in December 2024, one week after her 13th birthday.
Her family is now accusing the apps of misrepresenting and concealing the “dangers that pervade on their apps,” saying the platforms should have had proper age- and identity-verification systems in place.
Roblox’s attorneys argue, however, that Audree waived her right to sue the company when she and her parents agreed to the platform’s Terms of Service at least 28 times.
“She did so many ways over the course of several years: 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),” the company said in an Aug. 7 filing.
Court records show attorneys for Discord made a similar argument, saying Audree agreed to its Terms of Service, waving her rights, at least eight times. The company said Audree also used an adult birth date when she made her account.
The family’s lawsuit argues though that because of Audree’s age when she made the accounts, she did not have the legal capacity to enter into a binding agreement with either company.
Audree’s family is seeking a jury trial; however, the companies have asked a federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit and move the matter into private arbitration as laid out in their platforms’ terms of service.
