3rd Circuit Asks NJ Supreme Court to Weigh Constitutionality of Daniel’s Law
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this week asked the New Jersey Supreme Court to weigh in on whether the state’s Daniel’s Law imposes strict liability on data brokers for posting private information online, or if proof of intent is required.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Privacy Daily provides accurate coverage of newsworthy developments in data protection legislation, regulation, litigation, and enforcement for privacy professionals responsible for ensuring effective organizational data privacy compliance.
“This Court must confront a difficult First Amendment question that depends on an equally difficult question of statutory interpretation,” the 3rd Circuit said. As the defendants in the case “concede, the law serves compelling governmental interests. Yet it raises hard constitutional questions because it restricts their speech and seems to make them liable without fault.”
“To resolve this case, we need to know whether and what mental state(s) the law requires for liability,” the court added. “But state precedents on statutory construction and constitutional avoidance point in opposite directions,” so the court is asking the New Jersey Supreme Court, as “that issue could dispose of this case.”
The state's high court previously upheld Daniel’s Law in a June 17 decision rejecting a journalist’s First Amendment challenge to the statute (see 2506180038).
Then, on Aug. 11, U.S. District Court for New Jersey Judge Harvey Bartle heard oral argument in a case about Daniel’s Law constitutionality, raising doubts that that the Communications Decency Act gives data brokers immunity from the statute (see 2508110035).
However, on Aug. 19, another federal district court dismissed a case against several data brokers accused of violating West Virginia's version of Daniel's Law. The court ruled that the West Virginia law is unconstitutional (see 2508210057) in a move that may affect other states (see 2508280036).
Daniel's Law was created after a federal judge was targeted by a litigant who had practiced in her courtroom, found the judge's information from data broker resources and showed up at her house to assassinate her, instead killing Daniel, the judge's son, and wounding her husband (see 2503110077).
In 2023, the New Jersey law was amended to allow third parties to act on behalf of a covered person to bring a claim. Since then, the company Atlas Data Privacy has brought many claims against data brokers, a combination of which is the focus of the case in front of the 3rd Circuit (see 2504040031).