If I sign a contract with an arbitration clause, can it be enforced against someone I signed for — or by someone who never signed it at all?
The Supreme Court of Texas addressed those questions on
October 16, 2026, in UATP Management, LLC v. Geter, No. 24-0905
(Tex. Oct. 16, 2026) (per curiam).
What happened. Before her daughter went into the
play area at an Urban Air trampoline park in Beaumont, a mother signed a
release and indemnity agreement on the child’s behalf. The agreement released
and promised not to sue the local park and a list of related companies and
individuals, which it called the “protected parties.” It also said that “[a]ny
dispute or claim arising out of or relating to this Agreement” would be
resolved by binding arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act. The child
was hurt, and the mother sued the local park and the protected parties on her
behalf.
The defendants moved to compel arbitration, and the trial
court denied the motion. The court of appeals in Houston split the difference.
It held that the local park could compel arbitration, but that the protected
parties could not. Its reasoning was that they had not signed the agreement and
the arbitration clause did not mention them. The mother did not appeal the
ruling for the local park, so only the protected parties’ position reached the
Supreme Court. The Court ruled for them, deciding the case without oral
argument.
A parent can sign for a child. The court of appeals
had relied on a doctrine called “direct-benefits estoppel” to bind the child,
reasoning that she had accepted the benefits of the contract. The Supreme Court
said that step was unnecessary. Because the mother signed on the child’s behalf,
the agreement bound the child directly. Relying on its 2023 decision in Taylor
Morrison of Texas, Inc. v. Ha, 660 S.W.3d 529 (Tex. 2023), the Court
repeated that under the Family Code “parents may sign arbitration agreements on
behalf of their children.” It noted an exception only in rare cases, “such as
when a parent’s interests are adverse to the child’s interests.” Slip op. at
5–6.
The child could not back out. Texas law has long
allowed a minor to disaffirm, or walk away from, a contract. But on the Court’s
framing, that right has a limit: a minor “is not permitted to retain the
benefits of a contract while repudiating its obligations.” Id. at 6
(quoting Dairyland Cnty. Mut. Ins. Co. of Tex. v. Roman, 498 S.W.2d
154, 158 (Tex. 1973)). Once the child went into the park, the Court reasoned,
she had received what the agreement offered and could no longer disavow it. Id.
A court, not the arbitrator, decides who can enforce
the agreement. The protected parties argued that the arbitrator, not a
judge, should decide whether they could invoke the arbitration clause. The
Court disagreed. When the question is whether someone who did not sign the
agreement can enforce it, “it is for the courts, not an arbitrator,” to decide.
Id. at 7. The Court cited, among other cases, its 2025 decision in
another Urban Air case, Cerna ex rel. R.W. v. Pearland Urban Air, LLC,
714 S.W.3d 585 (Tex. 2025).
The related companies could enforce it as third-party
beneficiaries. Texas law recognizes several ways a non-signatory can
enforce or be bound by an arbitration agreement. Jody James Farms, JV v.
Altman Grp., Inc., 547 S.W.3d 624, 633 (Tex. 2018). The Court addressed
only one: whether the protected parties were third-party beneficiaries, meaning
that the people who signed the contract intended to benefit them. That benefit
has to be more than incidental. Slip op. at 7–8.
The Court found that intent in the agreement itself. By
naming the companies as “protected parties” and releasing claims against them,
the agreement showed an intent to benefit them. The mother argued that the
protection extended only to the release and indemnity, not to the arbitration
clause, which did not mention the protected parties. The Court read the
contract as a whole instead. The arbitration clause applied to “any dispute or
claim” relating to the agreement and did not exclude anyone. In the Court’s
view, arbitration was the parties’ chosen way to resolve disputes over the very
release that protected these companies. Id. at 8–9.
The Court reversed the part of the court of appeals’
judgment that had denied arbitration for the protected parties. It sent the
case back to the trial court. Id. at 9.
What it appears to mean. For families, the decision
suggests that the online or front-desk agreements common at trampoline parks,
gyms, camps, and similar venues may carry real weight in Texas. A parent’s
signature may bind the child to arbitration. The child’s use of the facility
may close off any later attempt to disaffirm. And companies named in the
agreement may be able to require arbitration even though they never signed it.
For businesses, the opinion seems to show the value of drafting: the outcome
turned on the agreement naming the related companies and on an arbitration
clause broad enough to reach them.
The opinion also leaves some questions open. It decides where
the child’s claims will be heard, not whether the release bars them. Some Texas
courts of appeals have held that a parent cannot release a child’s
personal-injury claims in advance. Whether that rule survives, and how an
arbitrator will apply it, are questions this opinion does not reach. Nor does
the opinion address the “rare” situations in which a parent’s interests might
be adverse to the child’s.
See also our post on independent contractors and
open-and-obvious dangers.
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