Inundated With Requests Under New Jersey's Daniel's Law?

A flood of class action lawsuits have been filed against companies alleging violations of New Jersey's Daniel's Law. The statute – enacted after the son of a New Jersey federal judge was fatally shot by a disgruntled lawyer – is designed to protect judicial officials, law enforcement officers, child protective investigators and their immediate family members (described in the statute as "covered persons") from the unauthorized disclosure of certain personal information. Over the past few days, plaintiffs' attorneys have filed more than 100 complaints in New Jersey state court on behalf of covered persons, asserting that the defendant companies failed to fulfill nondisclosure requests made by the plaintiffs. Defendants in these cases have received up to 20,000 nondisclosure requests from allegedly covered persons (who ostensibly have assigned their claims to "Atlas Data Privacy Corporation," a named plaintiff).