Court Permit LA County's Child-Safety Lawsuit Against Roblox Move Forward
Los Angeles County's lawsuit accusing Roblox of exposing children to sexual predators will head toward trial after a Superior Court judge rejected the gaming company's attempts to throw out the case.
Judge Dean J. Kitchens overruled Roblox's demurrer and denied its anti-SLAPP motion in a ruling issued in late September. He had taken the matter under submission in July before finalizing his decision.
The ruling is an early but significant win for the county. It holds that the case targets Roblox's own safety decisions, not content posted by its users, and so falls outside the broad legal shield that usually protects online platforms.
The Section 230 fight
The dispute turned on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the federal law that protects websites from liability for what third parties post on them. Roblox argued the law barred every claim in the county's complaint because each one stemmed from its role as a publisher. The company also noted that it did not create the sexually explicit games the county cited.
The county countered that it was not trying to hold Roblox responsible for users' content. "All we are asking is for Roblox to make sure that users are the age they say they are," county attorney Alexandra Walsh of Anapol Weiss told the judge at a hearing.
Kitchens sided with the county. He found that claims about Roblox's age-verification practices do not involve third-party posts, so Section 230 does not block them. He also concluded that the First Amendment does not shield Roblox from the suit, and he allowed the county's public nuisance and unfair competition claims to proceed.
What the county alleges
The county filed suit in February on behalf of the People of California. It says Roblox markets itself as safe for children while running a largely unsupervised online world where adults can easily pose as minors to reach them.
According to the complaint, Roblox let users enter their own birth dates without meaningful verification. It also allegedly lacked default communication limits and effective reporting tools, and kept marketing to families despite knowing about predators on the platform. One example in the complaint describes a man who drew a boy into sexual conversations, moved him to Discord, demanded explicit images and then threatened to publish them.
The county seeks an injunction forcing safety changes, remedial measures and civil penalties of up to $2,500 per day for each violation, plus its legal fees. It describes the suit as the first by a California government entity accusing Roblox of child endangerment and exploitation. Roblox has said it disputes the claims and will defend itself vigorously.
The case is People of the State of California v. Roblox Corp., No. 26STCV05708, in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Mounting legal pressure
Los Angeles County is not alone. In June, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin filed a similar public nuisance suit against Roblox and Discord, also in Los Angeles Superior Court. As the county's case moves closer to trial, both companies have tried to push individual claims into arbitration.
Roblox, meanwhile, has rolled out nationwide changes that include facial age checks and age-based accounts. Kitchens' ruling means a court may now weigh whether those steps came too late, and whether the company must go further.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Every case is different, and past results do not guarantee future outcomes.
