Fourth Circuit Strikes Down West Virginia's Daniel's Law Damages Rule

A federal appeals court has struck down a key part of West Virginia's version of Daniel's Law, the privacy statute meant to keep the home addresses and phone numbers of judges and police officers off the internet. The court held that the provision violates the First Amendment because it punished publication without giving anyone a chance to take the information down first.

The ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, reported by Bloomberg Law on Tuesday, affirms an earlier decision by a federal district court.

The Law at Issue

Daniel's Law takes its name from Daniel Anderl, the son of New Jersey federal Judge Esther Salas, who was killed in 2020 by a gunman who found the family's home address online. Congress and many states responded with laws restricting the publication of personal details of judges and other officials.

West Virginia's version includes a provision, known as Section E, that bars publishing the home addresses and phone numbers of judicial and law enforcement officials. As the district court described it, violations could bring liquidated damages of "not less than $1000 for each violation" plus possible punitive damages, with no requirement that the publisher had been notified or knew the information was protected.

How the Case Arose

The challenge grew out of lawsuits brought by Michael Jackson, a former West Virginia law enforcement officer, against companies that published his information, including people search site Whitepages and Thomson Reuters America Corp. The defendants argued that the law itself was unconstitutional.

In August 2025, U.S. District Judge Michael Urbanski agreed. He found that Section E is a content based restriction on speech, which means it must survive strict scrutiny, the most demanding test in constitutional law. He concluded that the provision was not narrowly tailored to the state's goal of protecting officials.

Why Notice Was Decisive

According to Bloomberg Law, the Fourth Circuit agreed that the lack of a notice provision was fatal. Under the West Virginia law, a website or data company could face damages the moment it published protected information, even if no one had ever asked it to remove that information.

The district court contrasted that approach with the federal Daniel Anderl Judicial Security and Privacy Act and with laws in at least nine states, including New Jersey, which require that a covered person first send a request before liability attaches. Those models give publishers an opportunity to comply, which courts view as a less restrictive way to protect safety.

Notice also addresses a practical problem. Data brokers and news sites publish huge volumes of public records, and they often have no way to know which addresses belong to judges or police officers unless someone tells them.

A separate part of West Virginia's law, Section H, lets officials send takedown requests and seek court orders to enforce them. That provision was not at issue in the case.

What It Means

The decision does not end privacy protection for West Virginia officials. It does mean that the state cannot impose automatic damages for publishing their details without warning. Lawmakers who want a stronger regime will likely look to the notice based models used elsewhere.

The ruling also adds to a national debate. In New Jersey, data brokers have spent years litigating the state's own Daniel's Law, which includes a notice requirement. The West Virginia decision suggests that courts will look hard at privacy laws that punish speech first, while notice based laws give officials a path that is easier to defend.

For judges and officers worried about their safety, the practical lesson is clear: under the laws that survive, protection often depends on sending a formal request to the sites that publish their information.