14-year old Caleb Rogers is learning a hard life lesson. Cheating is not a good way to handle anything in life. The teen is among a group of Fortnite gamers who were sued by developer Epic Games for using cheat codes to win games. According to The Herald Sun, Rogers received more notoriety for his lawsuit than others because his mother stepped in to combat the judge.
Senior U.S. District Court Judge Malcolm Howard agreed that Epic Games was in the right to pursue a lawsuit against Rogers. Caleb's mother, Lauren Rogers, argued that Epic Games was “using a 14-year-old child as a scapegoat to make an example of him.” Epic Games fired back, claiming that Rogers' actions went against their terms of licensing that players agree to when they open a Fortnite account. Lauren then argued that since her son is a minor, he couldn't sign off on any contractual agreements. She claimed that Epic had no way of enforcing their parental consent clause in their own licensing agreement that states a parent must be present if a minor agrees to the contract. Her “parental consent was not issued" argument was recently shut down by Judge Howard, who ruled that her “infancy defense” did not hold up. He stated that the child could not reap the benefits of the contract while also dodging the consequences. Epic Games is suing for copyright infringement, breach of contract, and wants the judge to issue an injunction that stops Rogers from cheating and sharing videos of his cheating on YouTube.