Atlas Data Privacy Corp. v. We Inform LLC
What the court held, why it matters for first responders, and how it shapes practice. Plain English.
Holding
The federal District of New Jersey denied the data brokers' facial First Amendment challenge in November 2024, holding that Daniel's Law survives at the pleading stage. The case is now before the New Jersey Supreme Court on a certified question: what mental state, if any, a defendant must have before it can be held liable under the statute.
Why it matters
This is the live constitutional test of Daniel's Law. The trial court held the statute survives a facial challenge. The Third Circuit sent the unresolved mental-state question to the New Jersey Supreme Court before deciding the First Amendment issue. Whether Daniel's Law stays enforceable at scale depends on the answer.
What this case is
Daniel's Law lets covered New Jersey public servants (judges, prosecutors, law enforcement officers, and their immediate families) require that their home address and unpublished home phone number be taken down from broker sites. The recipient has 10 business days to comply.
Atlas Data Privacy Corp. is the company that handles Daniel's Law claims for thousands of New Jersey officers, prosecutors, and judges. Covered people assign their claims to Atlas. Atlas sends the takedown request, then files suit when a broker does not comply. Since 2023 it has filed batched cases against more than 100 brokers in the District of New Jersey.
The brokers challenged the law on First Amendment grounds. They argue that home addresses come from public records, so requiring their removal is a content-based restriction on protected speech.
As of mid-2026 the dispute sits before the New Jersey Supreme Court on a certified question. The federal appeal in the Third Circuit and the state-side certified question are the same case viewed from two angles. See the New Jersey Supreme Court certified questions page for the state-side view of Docket A-8-25.
Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| November 26, 2024 | The District of New Jersey (1:24-cv-04037) denied the brokers' consolidated motion to dismiss. The court held Daniel's Law survives a facial First Amendment challenge under the test for restricting publication of lawfully obtained information. |
| Early 2025 | The brokers appealed to the Third Circuit (25-1555). |
| July 2025 | Third Circuit oral argument. |
| September 2, 2025 | The Third Circuit certified the mental-state question to the New Jersey Supreme Court instead of ruling itself: does Daniel's Law require a mental state before liability attaches, and if so, what level. |
| October 2025 | The New Jersey Supreme Court accepted the question (Docket A-8-25) and reframed it into one issue: what mental state, if any, is required to establish liability under Daniel's Law. |
| March 2026 | New Jersey Supreme Court oral argument. Decision pending as of mid-2026. |
What "mens rea" means here
Mens rea is the legal term for the mental state a defendant must have before the law can hold it liable. The question is whether a broker has to have known it was publishing a covered person's information, or whether it is liable for publishing it regardless of what it knew.
Atlas and the New Jersey Attorney General argue the law requires at least negligence. A broker had to be at least careless about whether it kept a covered person's protected information up after a valid takedown request.
The data brokers argue the opposite. They say the law imposes strict liability, meaning liability no matter what the broker knew or intended, and that a strict-liability restriction on publishing lawful information cannot survive the First Amendment.
The New Jersey Supreme Court has to say which reading is correct. Its answer then goes back to the Third Circuit for the constitutional analysis.
What the District of New Jersey held
Judge Harvey Bartle III denied the brokers' consolidated motion to dismiss in November 2024. The court applied the framework the Supreme Court uses when a statute restricts publishing lawfully obtained truthful information: the state can do so only for an interest of the highest order, through a narrowly drawn law.
- Lawfully obtained information. The brokers argued home addresses are pulled from public records, so the information was lawfully obtained. The court accepted that as a starting point.
- State interest of the highest order. New Jersey's interest in protecting judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement officers from targeted violence. The court found that interest concrete and documented, grounded in the 2020 murder of Daniel Anderl, the son of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the family's New Jersey home by a man who had located their address.
- Narrowly drawn. The statute reaches only home address and unpublished home phone number, not names, employers, or anything else. The court held that scope was narrow enough.
The brokers raised the same facial First Amendment theory the industry has used in other Daniel's Law cases. The court rejected it and denied the motion. The brokers appealed.
What the Third Circuit did
The Third Circuit heard oral argument in July 2025. Rather than decide the constitutional question, the panel certified the mental-state question to the New Jersey Supreme Court. Its reasoning: the First Amendment analysis depends on what mental state Daniel's Law actually requires, and that is a question of New Jersey law the state's own high court should answer first.
The certification paused the federal appeal. Once the New Jersey Supreme Court answers, the Third Circuit picks the case back up and applies that answer to the constitutional question.
Why this matters to first responders
The mental-state question shapes both how Daniel's Law is enforced and whether it survives the First Amendment challenge.
A negligence standard, the reading Atlas and the state urge, keeps the law on firmer constitutional footing while still letting plaintiffs proceed once a valid takedown notice is ignored.
A pure strict-liability reading, the one the brokers press, would make individual violations easier to prove but give the brokers a stronger argument that the law restricts speech too broadly.
The New Jersey Supreme Court is deciding which reading controls. The right to send takedown requests exists now, and that does not change while the case is pending.
What the case will not reach
The certified question is narrow. The court is not deciding:
- Whether Daniel's Law violates the First Amendment outright. The Third Circuit kept that question for itself, to decide after it has the state court's answer.
- Whether each separate publication counts as its own violation. That damages question sits in the trial court, not in the certified question.
- Who counts as a covered person at the margins. Also trial-court level.
- Whether the federal Driver's Privacy Protection Act, which limits how motor-vehicle record data can be shared, overrides the state law. Not in this docket.
The ruling will likely answer the certified question and stop there. The trial court then applies it.
Procedural posture
The case is consolidated with dozens of others in the District of New Jersey. We Inform LLC is the lead defendant on the constitutional question, but the ruling will reach any broker that raised the same defense. The November 2024 order resolved a consolidated motion spanning roughly three dozen of these actions. Atlas's broader 2024 filing wave named more than 100 brokers. Settlements are confidential, and brokers have continued to settle.
The New Jersey Supreme Court can take several months to a year to issue an opinion after argument. Once it answers, the Third Circuit resumes the federal appeal.
Where the legislature stands
In late 2025, New Jersey senators introduced a bill to narrow Daniel's Law lawsuits, including changes to how damages are calculated and to the provision that lets covered people assign their claims to a company like Atlas. As of mid-2026 that bill had not advanced, and the statute stands as written.
Sources
- EPIC case page: epic.org/documents/atlas-data-privacy-corp-et-al-v-we-inform-llc-et-al
- New Jersey Courts docket A-8-25: njcourts.gov/cases/a-8-25
- New Jersey Monitor (March 2026): newjerseymonitor.com/2026/03/18/nj-supreme-court-daniels-law
- Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression case page: fire.org/cases/atlas-data-privacy-corp-v-we-inform-llc-no-25-1555-3d-cir
What this means for you
Daniel's Law is one of the few statutes that force data brokers to take down a covered person's home address and unpublished phone number on request. If you qualify under Daniel's Law, that takedown right is usable now, even with the constitutional question still open. Frontline Privacy sends removal requests to data brokers, tracks the responses, and keeps re-checking for records that come back.