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ARBITRATION-MINOR CHILDREN, PARENT BINDING A MINOR CHILD TO ARBITRATION AGREEMENT

Santiago v. Philly Trampoline Park, LLC, 2023 Pa. Super. LEXIS 110 (March 21, 2023) (Bowes, J.) In these separate appeals, we are tasked with deciding an issue of first impression in Pennsylvania: whether a parent’s role as natural guardian entitles the parent to bind a minor child to an arbitration agreement and waive that child’s right to seek redress for injuries in a court of law. Answering that question in the negative and concluding that the respective trial courts likewise properly resolved whether the parents’ claims were subject to arbitration, we affirm both of the appealed-from orders that ruled upon motions to compel arbitration filed by Appellant, Sky Zone. In our view, the court involvement in a parent’s litigation of a minor child’s claims has the significant effect of transforming the parent’s role from that of a natural guardian into, in essence, a court-approved guardian who has authority to make decisions about the minor’s estate, not merely the child’s person. An agreement executed by natural guardian purportedly on the minor’s behalf without any court involvement, however, has none of the legal safeguards attendant to the appointment of a guardian of the minor’s estate. Consequently, the parents in their pre-litigation state of natural guardianship lacked any authority to manage the estate of their minor children. For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the respective trial courts properly ruled that no agreements bound the children or non-signing spouses to resolve the alleged negligence claims in arbitration rather than in the courts. Specifically, we agree with the trial courts that Sky Zone failed to meet its burden to show that the signatory spouses were the agents of the non-signing spouses. Further, we hold that the parent-child relationship did not empower the signatory parents to waive their minor children’s rights to have their claims resolved in a court of law. Therefore, we affirm.