Second Circuit — Driver’s Privacy Protection Act: Gordon v. Softech Int’l, Inc.

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit 

Driver’s Privacy Protection Act

Permitted Uses — Strict Liability

Gordon v. Softech Int’l, Inc.
12-661-cv
Judges Jacobs, Pooler and Chin

Background: The plaintiff appeals from a judgment dismissing his claim that his personal information was wrongfully disclosed in violation of the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act. The one of the defendants, a private citizen, engaged in a verbal altercation with the driver of a motor vehicle. He wrote down the license plate number of the car and used an only investigative service to obtain the home address of the owner of the vehicle, the plaintiff. The plaintiff commenced an action against the defendant, as well as the resellers of his information.

Ruling: The Second Circuit affirmed in part and vacated in part. The court found that the resellers are not strictly liable for the misuse of the information they sold to the defendant driver. However, the court found that the DPPA has a list of 14 exceptions that allow for certain uses of information. One of the defendant resellers may have improperly disclosed the plaintiff’s information when it supplied information to the defendant driver when he selected “insurance other” as a reason for the personal information.

Justin M. Sher of Sher Tremonte for the plaintiff-appellant; Coleen F. Middleton of Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker for the defendants-cross-claimants-cross-defendants-appellees