Supreme Court Shoots Down Use of DMV Records for Solicitation of Clients
One way Plaintiffs attorneys identify potential clients is through FOIA requests seeking DMV records. Not surprisingly, some citizens aren’t pleased about this practice. Recently, a South Carolina case on this issue went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, which held that lawyers may not obtain personal information via state driver license records in order to recruit clients for lawsuits.
In Marachich v. Spears, the justices voted 5-4 in favor of South Carolina residents who objected to solicitations from lawyers to join a lawsuit against car dealers. The respondent attorneys had used the South Carolina FOIA process to obtain the contact information for thousands of individuals in order to solicit them for a lawsuit pending against several car dealerships. They used this information to send approximately 34,000 letters explaining the lawsuit and enclosing a reply card to join it. Justice Kennedy said in his “brief” 31 page majority opinion that this type of solicitation of clients is prohibited by a federal privacy law intended to shield such records.
The Driver’s Privacy Protection Act of 1994 (DPPA) prohibits the use of personal information from motor vehicle records for bulk solicitation. However, the respondents argued that their use fell under an exception for use of the information in connection with civil or criminal proceedings, including the “investigation of anticipated litigation.” The majority disagreed, noting that an exception to a general policy statement should be usually be read narrowly to preserve the provision’s primary operation. They further held that reading the exception to permit disclosure of personal information when there is any potential connection to a legal dispute would undermine the DPPA’s purposes.
