Roblox Child Exploitation Settlement Negotiations To Be Overseen by Special Master

MDL judge agrees with plaintiffs’ request, indicating that he believes the litigation could be resolved without the need for hundreds of trials.

The U.S. District Judge overseeing all federal Roblox child exploitation lawsuits is likely to soon appoint a special master to help the parties try to negotiate a settlement agreement to end the growing litigation.

Roblox Corporation faces nearly 150 product liability lawsuits filed in federal courts nationwide. Many of these claims indicate the company’s popular Roblox gaming platform, which allows users to create their own custom games and is heavily marketed toward children, failed to protect minors from sexually predatory adults, who often posed as children to get their victims to chat with them. 

Lawsuits claim this has led to grooming, coercion, trading of sexually explicit images of minors, blackmail, and in some cases actual rapes, kidnapping and child trafficking, plaintiffs allege.

The gaming platform was first launched in 2006 and has millions of visitors per day, which consist mostly of children and teens. For years, critics have pointed out that Roblox had become a nexus for child sex predators while the site did little to prevent it, placing profits above children’s safety.

It was not until last year, as lawsuits began to be filed and public outrage peaked, that Roblox began deploying facial recognition software it says will help identify the age of users and prevent adults from contacting minors without their parents’ permission. However, critics still say the changes come too late and fall short of what is needed.

Roblox Child Exploitation Lawsuits

In December, all Roblox child exploitation lawsuits were consolidated into a multidistrict litigation (MDL) in the Northern District of California, where they are being overseen by U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg, who is guiding the litigation through coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings.

The judge is expected to deploy a “bellwether” trial plan, ordering the parties to select and prepare a group of cases largely representative of the lawsuits as a whole to serve as bellwether test cases. These early trials will give the parties the chance to see how juries respond to evidence and testimony likely to be repeated throughout the litigation.

The outcomes of these cases often form the basis for negotiating a settlement agreement, but it could take years before they go before an actual jury. Instead, the plaintiffs asked Judge Seeborg in late February to appoint a special master to assist in potentially helping the parties reach a settlement before such trials were necessary.

Roblox attorneys rejected the calls for a settlement master, saying that it is too early in the litigation and that none of the required conditions have yet been met to justify an appointment.

On April 15, Judge Seeborg issued a notice (PDF) indicating his intent to appoint a special master for settlement negotiations as plaintiffs advised. He has selected former U.S. Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli for the position.

“Mr. Perrelli is highly qualified to earn the parties’ trust and to facilitate discussions effectively that may lead to fair and efficient resolution of some or all of these matters. Mr. Perrelli will not adjudicate, or assist the Court with adjudicating, any issues in these proceedings. His role will be to use his experience and judgment solely to mediate settlement discussions among the various parties.”

– U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg

Judge Seeborg gave the parties until April 22 to respond to his suggestion but indicated it is his intention to appoint Perrelli as the cases’ special settlement master.

If neither the negotiations nor the bellwether trials result in a Roblox settlement agreement or other resolution to the claims, the judge may begin remanding the cases back to their originating districts for individual trials.

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