Key Points

  • The Fourth Circuit held that W. Va. Code § 5A-8-24(e), the operative provision of West Virginia's Daniel's Law, is a content-based restriction on speech protected by the First Amendment.
  • The court held the provision fails strict scrutiny because it imposes liability without a notice requirement or a knowledge requirement and so is not the least restrictive means of protecting judicial and law-enforcement officials.
  • The court found the statute's reasonable-person limit offered no real narrowing because the plaintiff agreed that every online disclosure of a name and address exposes a person to harassment or harm.
  • The panel rejected arguments that the law regulates only data, that the Florida Star line of cases or a confidentiality tradition displaces strict scrutiny, and that the disclosures are commercial speech.
  • The panel unanimously affirmed the dismissal of five putative class actions against people-search companies.

A federal appeals court held on Oct. 27 that West Virginia's Daniel's Law, which lets judges, prosecutors, public defenders and police officers sue anyone who publishes their home addresses or unlisted phone numbers, violates the First Amendment because it imposes liability without first giving the publisher notice and without requiring that the publisher knew whose information it shared.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of five proposed class actions that Michael Jackson, a retired law-enforcement officer from Gassaway, West Virginia, brought against companies offering "people search" services online: Thomson Reuters America Corp., Whitepages Inc., Thryv Inc., PeopleConnect Inc. and five related companies, and LexisNexis Risk Solutions Inc. Judge Niemeyer wrote the opinion for a unanimous panel that included Judges Agee and Harris.

The ruling turns on a feature that sets West Virginia's 2021 statute apart from the versions Congress and other states adopted. Those laws, the court said, require a protected official to ask a publisher to remove the information, and liability attaches only if the publisher fails to comply. West Virginia's law makes a company liable the moment it publishes, with damages of at least $1,000 per violation, even if it does not know the address belongs to an official.

Legislatures passed the laws after the 2020 killing in New Jersey of Daniel Anderl, the 20-year-old son of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas. A lawyer who had appeared before her found her home address online, went to her house dressed as a delivery driver and shot Daniel at the door, the opinion recounted.

The West Virginia provision bars any person, business or association from disclosing a covered official's home address or unpublished phone number "under circumstances in which a reasonable person would believe that providing such information would expose another to harassment or risk of harm to life or property." It also protects people living at those officials' addresses, and it authorizes actual and punitive damages, attorney fees and equitable relief.

Jackson alleged that each company, acting as a data broker, gathered information from public records, social media and other brokers and, for a fee, made available the home addresses and phone numbers of thousands of covered West Virginia officials. He sought $1,000 in statutory damages for each violation.

Judge Michael F. Urbanski of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia dismissed the suits in a 44-page opinion, holding the provision facially unconstitutional.

On appeal, Jackson argued that the law regulated data rather than speech. The panel disagreed, citing Supreme Court decisions, including Sorrell v. IMS Health Inc. and Bartnicki v. Vopper, that treat the disclosure of facts as protected expression.

The court also rejected Jackson's argument that the law did not regulate speech based on its content, a classification that would have spared it from strict scrutiny. That standard requires the party defending a law to show that it is the least restrictive means of serving a compelling interest. Judge Niemeyer offered an example: under the statute, "a disclosure that a grocery store clerk lives at 100 Main Street is permitted, while a disclosure that a police officer lives at 100 Main Street is prohibited."

Both sides agreed that protecting the officials is a compelling interest. A broker that compiles a directory of a town's residents from land records "undoubtedly violates the law" because the list will unknowingly include officials, Judge Niemeyer wrote. "Because liability is automatic and cannot be effectively avoided, the entity is disincentivized from publishing the information as to any of the town's residents," he wrote.

Jackson argued that the reasonable-person clause confined the law's reach. But he agreed at oral argument that every online disclosure of a name and address exposes a person to harassment or harm, the panel said, and his complaints alleged as much. "Thus, the argued 'limitation' in § 5A-8-24(e) is actually not limiting but universal," the court held.

The court then pointed to Delaware's version, which requires a publisher to remove an official's information within 72 hours of a written request. "But West Virginia's Daniel's Law alone does not require notification as a precondition of liability," Judge Niemeyer wrote. He added that notice is "one method for narrowing the law, it is not the only way," though it is the method "that Congress and virtually every other State has chosen."

The panel also rejected three arguments for a more lenient standard. It said the Supreme Court's Florida Star v. B.J.F. line of cases, on news organizations punished for publishing truthful information, does not fit a statute reaching far beyond the press and would require strict scrutiny anyway. It said Jackson had shown no tradition exempting such laws, and it held that a profit motive alone does not make the listings commercial speech.

The opinion said the ruling rested on a single defect. West Virginia "was fully justified in attempting to regulate such speech in light of the compelling government interest in enhancing the safety and security of certain public officials," Judge Niemeyer wrote, but its law reached more broadly than necessary. "For that reason and only that reason, we agree with the district court that West Virginia could have regulated more narrowly to accomplish its purpose and thereby be less restrictive of what is otherwise protected speech," he wrote.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, the Software & Information Industry Association, and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and other news and media organizations filed briefs supporting the companies. Philip Lawrence Fraietta of Bursor & Fisher argued for Jackson, and Samir I. Deger-Sen of Latham & Watkins argued for the companies. Ronald G. London of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression represented that group as amicus.

The decision leaves in place the district court's Aug. 19, 2025, judgments dismissing all five suits. A challenge to New Jersey's Daniel's Law, Atlas Data Privacy Corp. v. We Inform LLC, which a New Jersey federal court evaluated under Florida Star, was docketed on appeal at the Third Circuit in March 2025, according to the Fourth Circuit's citation.