ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. WE INFORM, LLC, et al.
NO. 24-4037
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY
June 27, 2025
Case 1:24-cv-11023-HB Document 34 Filed 06/27/25 Page 1 of 30 PageID: 953
ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. THE PEOPLE SEARCHERS, LLC, et al. CIVIL ACTION NO. 24-4045
ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. DM GROUP, INC., et al. CIVIL ACTION NO. 24-4075
ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. DELUXE CORP., et al. CIVIL ACTION NO. 24-4080
ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. QUANTARIUM ALLIANCE, LLC, et al. CIVIL ACTION NO. 24-4098
ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. YARDI SYSTEMS, INC. CIVIL ACTION NO. 24-4103
ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. DIGITAL SAFETY PRODUCTS, LLC, et al. CIVIL ACTION NO. 24-4141
ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. CIVIL DATA RESEARCH, LLC, et al. CIVIL ACTION NO. 24-4143
ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. LABELS & LISTS, INC., et al. CIVIL ACTION NO. 24-4174
ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. INNOVIS DATA SOLUTIONS, INC., et al. CIVIL ACTION NO. 24-4176
ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. ACCURATE APPEND, INC., et al. CIVIL ACTION NO. 24-4178
ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. ZILLOW, INC., et al. CIVIL ACTION NO. 24-4256
ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. THOMSON REUTERS CORPORATION, et al. CIVIL ACTION NO. 24-4269
ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. MELISSA DATA CORP., et al. CIVIL ACTION NO. 24-4292
ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. RESTORATION OF AMERICA, et al. CIVIL ACTION NO. 24-4324
ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. i360, LLC, et al. CIVIL ACTION NO. 24-4345
ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. ACCUZIP, INC., et al. CIVIL ACTION NO. 24-4383
ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. SYNAPTIX TECHNOLOGY, LLC, et al. CIVIL ACTION NO. 24-4385
ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. JOY ROCKWELL ENTERPRISES, INC., et al. CIVIL ACTION NO. 24-4389
ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. E-MERGES.COM, INC. CIVIL ACTION NO. 24-4434
ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. ROCKETREACH LLC, et al. CIVIL ACTION NO. 24-4664
ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. BELLES CAMP COMMUNICATIONS, INC., et al. CIVIL ACTION NO. 24-4949
ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. PROPERTYRADAR, INC., et al. CIVIL ACTION NO. 24-5600
ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. THE ALESCO GROUP, L.L.C. CIVIL ACTION NO. 24-5656
ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. AMERILIST, INC., et al. CIVIL ACTION NO. 24-5775
ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. US DATA CORPORATION, et al. CIVIL ACTION NO. 24-7324
ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. SMARTY, LLC, et al. CIVIL ACTION NO. 24-8075
ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. COMPACT INFORMATION SYSTEMS, LLC, et al. CIVIL ACTION NO. 24-8451
ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. SPY DIALER, INC., et al. CIVIL ACTION NO. 24-11023
ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. LIGHTHOUSE LIST COMPANY, LLC, et al. CIVIL ACTION NO. 24-11443
ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. PEOPLEWHIZ, INC., et al. CIVIL ACTION NO. 25-237
ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. FIRST DIRECT, INC., et al. CIVIL ACTION NO. 25-1480
ATLAS DATA PRIVACY CORPORATION, et al. v. INNOVATIVE WEB SOLUTIONS, LLC, et al. CIVIL ACTION NO. 25-1535
MEMORANDUM
Bartle, J. June 27, 2025
These are forty-two actions for violations of a New Jersey statute known as Daniel‘s Law.
Defendants set forth a number of grounds in support of their motions. At this time, the court will rule on two of
I.
On a Sunday afternoon, July 19 2020, a disgruntled lawyer sought to assassinate United States District Judge Esther Salas. After the lawyer found Judge Salas‘s home address on the internet, he showed up at her residence in New Jersey dressed as a delivery person. Esther Salas, My Son Was Killed Because I‘m a Federal Judge, N.Y. Times (Dec. 8, 2020), https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/08/opinion/esther-salas-murder-federal-judges.html. Daniel Anderl, Judge Salas‘s 20-year-old son, answered the door and was fatally shot by the lawyer.
Daniel‘s Law provides that judges, prosecutors, other law enforcement officers, and their respective immediate family members residing in the same home (“covered persons“) may request in writing that any person, business, or association not disclose or make available their home addresses and unpublished telephone numbers.
(1) actual damages, but not less than liquidated damages computed at the rate of $1,000 for each violation of this act;
(2) punitive damages upon proof of willful or reckless disregard of the law;
(3) reasonable attorney‘s fees and other litigation costs reasonably incurred; and
(4) any other preliminary and equitable relief as the court determines to be appropriate.
Atlas owns and operates an online platform for covered persons to identify entities that disclose covered information on the internet and to send written takedown notices. To use the service, covered persons create an account on Atlas‘s website and set up an email address using Atlas‘s domain name, “AtlasMail.” They can then use the platform to identify which entities are disclosing or making available their personal information and send an email, pre-generated by Atlas, requesting that the information be removed. Each covered person decides to which entities takedown notices are to be sent. All 19,000 covered persons referenced in the complaints used the Atlas platform to send their notices.
According to the complaints, each takedown notice contained the name, home address, and/or unlisted telephone number of the individual sender and a statement that the sender is a covered person under Daniel‘s Law. A redacted image of one of the takedown notices sent by way of Atlas‘s platform is
The complaints are materially identical in their allegations. They all allege that each defendant “is an entity that discloses or re-discloses on the Internet or otherwise makes available the home addresses and/or unpublished home telephone numbers of covered persons.”
The complaints detail in varying degrees the manner in which covered persons’ information has been allegedly disclosed or made available. In each, the defendant‘s website URL is identified. All complaints assert that “Defendants offer and engage in the disclosure of data and information through one or more websites or applications, or otherwise in New Jersey, and to businesses and individuals who operate or reside in New Jersey.” Some complaints provide, as an exemplar, redacted screenshots of defendants’ websites containing the information of an individual sender. Other complaints aver that the defendants are disclosing information “on information and belief.”
In considering a
Some defendants ask the court to look further and take into account the content of defendants’ websites because Atlas cites and relies upon these websites in each complaint and, in some cases, provides screenshots of certain web pages. Defendants cite two cases in which a court in a footnote stated without any analysis and almost as an afterthought that it had reviewed a website in deciding a motion to dismiss under
In one case, in which plaintiff sued under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, an issue was whether the
In the second action, Edelman v. Croonquist, No. 09-cv-1938, 2010 WL 1816180, at *1 (D.N.J. May 4, 2010), a comedian was sued for allegedly defamatory comments which she made as part of her comedy act posted on her website. It apparently was relevant that the comedian was of African-American and Swedish descent. Id. The court, after looking at her website, took judicial notice of her ethnicity and the context of defendant‘s comedy act and alleged defamatory statements. Id. at *1 n.1.
The website review in those cases was very narrow and involved apparently easily ascertainable and undisputed facts. In contrast, the request for review here is much more complex. Certain defendants may offer web services visible to some members of the public but not others. Others may have personal information available only in the far corners of their sites, not readily found by a simple search. The defendants do nothing to aid the court‘s inquiry. For the court to comb through each and every page of the website of each defendant to determine if the personal information in issue is being disclosed as to
III.
All defendants contend that the complaints do not satisfy the pleading requirements of
Defendants first assert that plaintiffs have not identified in the complaint the 19,000 assignors and the applicability of Daniel‘s Law to them. These arguments are without merit. The complaints plead that each assignor is a “covered person” under Daniel‘s Law. While the complaints themselves do not state the names, home addresses, and unlisted phone numbers of the thousands of individuals who sent takedown notices through Atlas‘s platform, Atlas has now furnished this information to the defendants. Pursuant to the court‘s order dated June 17, 2025, Atlas will also disclose by July 16, 2025 the date the assignors delivered the takedown notices as well as the category of covered person into which each assignor fits, that is whether the covered person is a judge, prosecutor, law enforcement official, child protective services officer, or a family member. Defendants now have or will shortly have all of this pertinent information.
Third, defendants argue that the complaints must be dismissed because the takedown notices themselves were not sufficient. Daniel‘s Law provides that an authorized person must “provide written notice to the person from whom the authorized person is seeking nondisclosure that the authorized person is an authorized person and requesting that the person cease the disclosure of the information and remove the protected
Carteret Properties v. Variety Donuts, Inc., upon which defendants rely, is inapposite. See 228 A.2d 674 (N.J. 1967). There, a landlord sued its tenant under a New Jersey Statute to repossess the leased premises. Id. at 678. That law provided that a landlord in order to do so must give notice to the tenant that “specif[ies] the cause of the termination of the tenancy.” Id. The New Jersey Supreme Court construed “specify” to mean “to state precisely or in detail, to point out, to particularize, or to designate by words one thing or another.” Id. The landlord simply notified the tenant of the tenancy‘s termination “for the reason that you have committed a breach of that covenant in your lease providing that the store premises aforesaid are ‘to be used and occupied only for the retail sale of food and allied products.‘” Id. The Court held that the landlord merely stated a legal conclusion. Id. The notice did
In contrast to Carteret Properties, Daniel‘s Law does not use the word “specify.” Plaintiffs here followed the exact wording of the statute in transmitting the written notice and including the information required. See
Fourth, defendants submit that the complaints are deficient because they do not specifically assert that defendants received the takedown notices. The complaints allege that the covered persons “sent Defendants written nondisclosure requests . . . using AtlasMail.” This is enough. There is a well-established rebuttable presumption that when traditional mail is sent, it is delivered. See In re Cendant Corp. Prides Litig., 311 F.3d 298, 304 (3d Cir. 2002). There is no sound reason why this presumption should not apply equally to electronic mail. Courts have so held. See, e.g., Ball v. Kotter, 723 F.3d 813, 830 (7th Cir. 2013); Am. Boat Co., Inc. v. Unknown Sunken Barge, 418 F.3d 910, 914 (8th Cir. 2005). At a later stage, of course, defendants may try to rebut any presumption.
Sixth, defendants argue that plaintiffs have failed to plead that any defendant acted negligently. In its Memorandum accompanying its November 26, 2024 Order, the court held that defendants may be held liable under Daniel‘s Law for compensatory damages only if those defendants acted negligently. See, Atlas Data Privacy Corp. v. We Inform, 758 G. Supp. 3d 322, 341 (D.N.J. 2024). While the word “negligence” does not appear in the complaints, plaintiffs assert they have alleged facts sufficient to infer negligence. The Supreme Court in Iqbal explained that plausibility is satisfied if a plaintiff pleads sufficient conduct from which liability can be reasonably inferred. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. Plaintiffs allege that covered persons sent non-disclosure requests and that defendants
Defendants argue that the complaints do not adequately allege proximate causation, a common law principle necessary for liability. They cite New Jersey‘s “well-recognized presumption that the Legislature has not acted to adopt a statute that derogates from the common law.” Aden v. Fortsch, 776 A.2d 792, 804 (N.J. 2001). The proximate cause element in Daniel‘s Law is clear. The continued availability of protected information in defiance of the takedown notices is the proximate cause of the harm to covered persons. Proximate cause can reasonably be inferred from the allegations in the complaints.
Defendants assert that the complaints should be dismissed because plaintiffs fail to plead actual damages or
Defendants first maintain that references to “privacy and security” are “boilerplate” and insufficient to allege harm. The complaints recount that Daniel‘s Law was enacted in response to the murder of Judge Salas‘s son at the hands of her would-be assassin. It is also undisputed, as the complaints explain, that “violence against police officers and judges has not stopped” (capitalization omitted). In some cases law enforcement officers and judges or family members have been killed by those who obtained their home address or phone numbers from the internet. The complaints also delve into specific examples of harm pertaining to the named plaintiffs. The examples include the surveillance by one criminal of an officer‘s home and family, targeted death threats containing officers’ home addresses, an attempted firebombing, extortion demands, and the circling of one officer‘s home by armed gunmen.
The complaints of course could have been more specific as to the harm suffered by Atlas‘s assignors. Again, it can reasonably be inferred from the cited examples and the circumstances surrounding the passage of Daniel‘s Law, to say nothing of common sense, that covered persons suffer at the very
Defendants challenge plaintiffs’ request for liquidated damages. The definition of the term “liquidated damages” used in Daniel‘s Law is derived from the common law of contracts. See Pichler v. UNITE, 542 F.3d 380, 393 (3d Cir. 2008). Parties may include a contractual provision for a sum certain known as liquidated damages to be paid in the event of a breach where it may be difficult to quantify the damages and the sum agreed to is a reasonable forecast of injury and not a penalty. See id.; Restatement 2d, Contracts § 356.
Daniel‘s Law acts preemptively. It does not require a covered person to wait until a specific threat or actual physical injury takes place before a remedy is available. The Legislature did not wait to close the door until after the horse leaves the barn. It rightly recognized that it may be difficult to quantify actual damages and thus included a liquidated damages provision. The sum of $1,000 as compensation for emotional harm and distress for a violation of Daniel‘s Law is not an unreasonable amount in a world of increasing threats and physical harm to judges, prosecutors, law enforcement officials, and their families. The Legislature‘s approach should come as
Punitive damages have also been adequately pleaded. To obtain punitive damages under Daniel‘s Law, plaintiffs must prove that defendants disregarded the law willfully or recklessly. As already discussed, plaintiffs allege that defendants received takedown requests and continue for extended periods thereafter not to comply with Daniel‘s Law. For present purposes, this lapse in time is sufficient to allege recklessness. See Huggins v. FedLoan Servicing, No. 19-cv-21731, 2020 WL 136465747, at *7 (D.N.J. Dec. 2, 2020); cf. Durmer v. O‘Carroll, 991 F.2d 64, 68-69 (3d Cir. 1993).
Finally, plaintiffs’ claims for injunctive relief will be allowed to proceed. To plead injunctive relief adequately, plaintiffs must allege a real and immediate threat of future harm. See Doe v. Div. of Youth and Fam. Servs., 148 F. Supp. 2d 462, 478 (D.N.J. 2001). Here, plaintiffs allege in their complaint that the disclosure of protected information is ongoing at the time of the complaint. The alleged dangers from disclosure are real and immediate.
Accordingly, the motions of defendants under
IV.
Four defendants--Infomatics, LLC, the People Searchers, LLC, We Inform, LLC, and eMerges.com, Inc.--argue that Daniel‘s Law by its terms does not apply extraterritorially to them as their alleged conduct occurred outside of New Jersey. See Extraterritoriality, Black‘s Law Dictionary (12th ed. 2024). The issue they raise is solely one of statutory construction.
In interpreting a statute, the objective of the court “is to discern and effectuate the intent of the Legislature.” Murray v. Plainfield Rescue Squad, 46 A.3d 1262, 1269 (N.J. 2012). To do so, the court begins with the plain language of the statute. Real v. Radir Wheels, Inc., 969 A.2d 1069, 1077 (N.J. 2009) (quoting Daidone v. Betrick Bulkheading, 924 A.2d 1193, 1198 (N.J. 2007)). If the “statutory language is clear and unambiguous, and susceptible to only one interpretation,” the court applies that interpretation. Id. If, however, the statute is “silent with respect to the issue at hand,” the court may look beyond the text. McGovern v. Rutgers, 47 A.3d 724, 732 (N.J. 2012). “Legislative intent can be discerned by background circumstances revealing the evil sought to be remedied and as thus illuminated may be read into the statute by implication with the same effectiveness as though expressly declared
For example, in Turner v. Aldens, the Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court addressed the extraterritorial application of the Retail Installment Sales Act (“RISA“),
Similarly, in Oxford Consumer Discount Co. of North Philadelphia V. Stefanelli, the Appellate Division addressed the Secondary Mortgage Loan Act of 1965, which regulated mortgages
In arguing that Daniel‘s Law does not apply extraterritorially, defendants cite to a series of New Jersey employment law cases which refuse to apply New Jersey employment statutes to employment contracts located outside of the state. See, e.g., Peikin v. Kimmel & Silverman, P.C., 576 F. Supp. 2d 654, 658 (D.N.J. 2008); Menzon v. Peters Advisors, LLC, 553 F. Supp. 3d 187 (D.N.J. 2021); D‘Agostino v. Johnson & Johnson, Inc., 628 A.2d 305 (N.J. 1993). These cases, however, merely “reflect[s New Jersey‘s] common-law employment law, which will apply extraterritorially only when the underlying clear mandate of public policy is intended to have an extraterritorial effect.” D‘Agostino, 628 A.2d at 315.
Daniel‘s Law is designed to protect certain groups of New Jersey. The interest of the State of New Jersey is legitimate and compelling. The information in issue is largely published online. Removing it from the internet is therefore crucial to Daniel‘s Law‘s efficacy. See
The complaints allege that “Defendants offer and engage in the disclosure of data and information through one or more websites or applications, or otherwise in New Jersey, and to businesses and individuals who operate or reside in New Jersey.” The issue before the court, as noted, deals only with the narrow issue of statutory construction. How Daniel‘s Law will be applied in specific situations as to these and other defendants must await another day. Accordingly, the motions of Infomatics, The People Searchers, We Inform, and eMerges to dismiss on the ground that Daniel‘s Law does not reach their conduct will be denied.
BY THE COURT:
/s/ Harvey Bartle III
J.