SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 12, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) has ordered the centralization of federal lawsuits alleging child sexual exploitation and assault facilitated through the Roblox gaming platform, creating In re: Roblox Corporation Child Sexual Exploitation and Assault Litigation, MDL No. 3166. The litigation will proceed in the Northern District of California before Chief U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg, who will oversee coordinated pretrial proceedings.
What Consolidation Means
The JPML’s decision consolidates 31 actions pending in 12 federal districts, with 48 additional related cases already identified as potential tag-along actions.
Plaintiffs across the country allege that child predators used Roblox to identify, groom, and exploit minors—often persuading children to move communications from Roblox to secondary platforms such as Discord, Snapchat, Instagram, or direct messaging to facilitate sexual abuse.
“This ruling recognizes what families across the country have been saying for years: these cases are not isolated incidents, but the result of systemic safety failures on a platform marketed to children,” said Levin Papantonio attorney Emmie Paulos. “Centralizing these cases allows one court to examine the shared evidence—what Roblox knew, what it could have done to protect children, and why meaningful safeguards were not implemented. That coordinated process is essential to ensuring accountability and preventing future harm.”
Rationale for Centralization
In its transfer order, the JPML concluded that the cases present highly overlapping factual questions and that centralization will promote efficiency, consistency, and fairness for all parties involved. The Panel found that the lawsuits share common issues regarding:
- Roblox’s knowledge that its platform was being used by child predators
- Whether Roblox misrepresented the safety of its platform for children
- Whether Roblox had the means to implement effective parental controls and safety features
- Whether Roblox failed to warn families about known risks of sexual exploitation associated with children’s use of the platform.
The court emphasized that the litigation will involve particularly complex discovery, including extensive fact and expert analysis related to technology and platform design. According to the Panel, questions surrounding “the technological feasibility of enhanced child safety features” are likely to be highly complex and will require significant expert discovery. Centralization, the Panel explained, will avoid duplicative discovery efforts and inconsistent rulings on critical issues, including expert admissibility.
Defendants’ Opposition and Why It Failed
Defendants, including Roblox and other platform companies named in certain actions, opposed centralization. They argued that factual differences among cases—such as variations in platforms, individual incidents, and user interactions—outweighed any common issues. Defendants also asserted that anticipated motions to compel arbitration and individualized defenses made informal coordination preferable to an MDL.
The JPML rejected those arguments, finding that they did not outweigh the benefits of centralized proceedings. The Panel noted that multi-defendant and multi-product cases are common in product liability and technology-related MDLs and that plaintiffs allege indivisible injuries arising from the combined use of defendants’ platforms. Without centralization, the court explained, the complexity of managing overlapping claims would simply be spread across dozens of courts nationwide, creating inefficiency and the risk of inconsistent outcomes.
The Panel also found that centralization will allow coordinated handling of key pretrial motions raising cross-cutting legal issues, including defenses related to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, First Amendment arguments, and questions about whether platform operators owe a duty to protect minors from foreseeable third-party harm. Even with respect to arbitration defenses, the Panel concluded that efficiencies could be achieved through coordinated or bellwether motion practice overseen by a single court.
Why the Northern District of California?
The Northern District of California was selected as the transferee forum with the support of all responding plaintiffs and defendants. Nineteen of the pending cases are already filed in the district, and Roblox, along with other platform defendants, is headquartered there or nearby. In assigning the litigation to Judge Seeborg, the JPML cited his experience and expressed confidence in his ability to manage the proceedings efficiently.
The Panel further noted that additional cases are likely to follow, citing recent enforcement actions and investigations by state attorneys general concerning Roblox’s alleged failure to adequately protect minors from sexual exploitation.
Coordinated pretrial proceedings are expected to address discovery, motion practice, and other foundational issues as the litigation moves forward.
About Emmie Paulos
Emmie J. Paulos is a shareholder at Levin Papantonio who focuses her practice on complex civil litigation and mass torts, with a dedicated emphasis on representing survivors of sexual abuse and human trafficking. She regularly brings civil claims against corporations and institutions—including national hotel brands and online platforms—that have profited from or turned a blind eye to sexual exploitation. Her work is centered on holding powerful entities accountable and helping survivors obtain justice.
Ms. Paulos also brings extensive experience in mass tort, products liability, and environmental litigation. She currently serves on the Plaintiff Steering Committee in In re: Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Product Liability Litigation (MDL 3047), where she represents adolescents and young adults harmed by social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snap, and YouTube.
About Levin Papantonio
The Levin Papantonio law firm has been representing injured people across the globe since 1955. The national trial law firm specializes in mass torts, products liability, environmental contamination, drug injuries, and complex personal injury.
Levin Papantonio has gained national recognition as one of the most successful personal injury firms in the world and has been featured on CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox, as well as in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time Magazine, Forbes, and the National Law Journal.
LP attorneys handle lawsuits throughout the country and have helped obtain more than $80 billion in jury verdicts and settlements, litigating against some of the largest corporations in the world.
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Contact: Sara Stephens sstephens@levinlaw.com
