Jörn, Thanks for your response.
I got it to submit with submitHandler: function(form) { form.submit(); }, now I have a problem when using the cakephp form helper. This works with the manually created input rules: { phone: {phoneUS: true} } <input name="phone" id="phone" value="555-555-5555"/> however I am not sure how to setup the rules when using the cakePHP form helper. The helper generates the following: <input name="data[UserContactDetail][phone]" type="text" value="555-555-5555" id="UserContactDetailPhone" /> I have tried using rules: { data[UserContactDetail][phone]: {phoneUS: true} } and this rules: { UserContactDetailPhone: {phoneUS: true} } but it doesn't validate.