Trial News

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that parents cannot waive their minor children’s right to a jury trial by signing arbitration agreements, affirming lower court rulings that refused to compel arbitration in two negligence actions arising from injuries at Sky Zone trampoline parks. The state high court held that such agreements constitute a forfeiture of a minor’s right to judicial protections and therefore are unenforceable without court approval. The court also held that one parent’s signature on an arbitration agreement does not bind the other parent. (Santiago v. Philly Trampoline Park, LLC, t/a Sky Zone; Shultz v. Sky Zone, LLC, Nos. 24 EAP 2023, 25 EAP 2023 (Pa. Sept. 25, 2025).)

The litigation arose from two separate incidents in which minors were injured while participating in activities at Sky Zone facilities in Philadelphia and Lancaster County. In each case, only one parent signed a “Participant Agreement, Release, and Assumption of Risk” before their child entered the park. The agreement included a broad arbitration clause requiring all disputes to be resolved through binding arbitration.

After the injuries occurred, the families sued Sky Zone for negligence. Sky Zone moved to compel arbitration, arguing that the signing parent had validly executed the agreements on behalf of their children and that both parents were bound. In Santiago, the trial court denied the motion, holding that a parent cannot waive a child’s right to a judicial forum absent statutory authority. The trial court in Shultz reached the same conclusion. The Pennsylvania Superior Court consolidated the appeals and affirmed, reasoning that the right to a jury trial is a substantive one that cannot be bargained away by a parent without court approval. Sky Zone appealed.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed. The court applied longstanding agency and property principles to conclude that parents have “no inherent authority” to bind their children to arbitration agreements that waive judicial rights. A cause of action for personal injury, the court explained, is considered the child’s property, and a parent—though a “natural guardian”—has no legal power to dispose of or compromise that property without judicial oversight. “Parents are not agents of their children,” the court wrote. “They lack inherent authority to intermeddle with the property of the infant, including the infant’s cause of action for wrongful injury.”

The court emphasized that compelling arbitration would deprive minors of the procedural safeguards built into Pennsylvania’s judicial system. Under state law, settlements of minors’ claims require court approval, and guardians ad litem must be appointed to ensure the minor’s interests are protected. Those protections do not exist in arbitration. “By enforcing these agreements,” the court explained, “a private entity would displace the judiciary’s protective role without oversight or approval.”

Sky Zone argued that arbitration merely selects an alternative forum for dispute resolution and does not extinguish a minor’s substantive rights. The court rejected that view, holding that arbitration affects both the forum and the process, fundamentally altering the rights associated with civil litigation—including discovery, evidentiary standards, and the right to appeal. “The distinction between forum and right is illusory,” the court stated.

The court rejected Sky Zone’s contention that one parent’s signature should bind the non-signing spouse, holding that marriage alone does not create an agency relationship. “Absent evidence of actual or apparent authority, one spouse cannot unilaterally waive the other’s rights—or those of their child—to a judicial forum.”

Reaffirming Pennsylvania’s strong public policy of protecting minors’ legal interests, the court distinguished contrary rulings from New Jersey and Ohio, noting that those states do not provide comparable judicial oversight of minors’ settlements. The court concluded that “Pennsylvania’s procedural framework reflects a deliberate policy choice to safeguard minors’ property rights through court supervision.”

Nashville attorney Mark Chalos, who has handled forced arbitration cases throughout the country, said, “The right to a jury trial is enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Courts must protect this fundamental right. Unfortunately, some unscrupulous actors have sought to exploit forced arbitration as a means of avoiding accountability for their wrongdoing. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision in Santiago is well reasoned and grounded in bedrock legal principles.”