The Missouri Supreme Court vacated a circuit court’s judgment in a personal injury suit against a trampoline park, concluding last week that an arbitrator was required to weigh in on challenges to the validity and scope of the parties’ arbitration agreement.
In a Tuesday decision, the state high court vacated the Greene County Circuit Court’s order overruling the motion by UATP Springfield, doing business as Urban Air Springfield, to compel arbitration. The court concluded that an agreement between the company and the plaintiff, Presley Karlin, contained a delegation clause that required challenges to the validity or scope of the agreement to be addressed by an arbitrator rather than a court. Karlin sued the defendant after he was injured during a visit to the trampoline park in March 2021 when he was 17. The plaintiff filed the lawsuit against Urban Air after he turned 18, challenging the validity of a waiver that his mother had signed on a prior visit.