In Kratovil v. City of New Brunswick (A-6-24/089427) (Decided June 17, 2025), the Supreme Court of New Jersey upheld Daniel’s Law, which prohibits the disclosure of the home addresses of certain public officials, including judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement personnel.
In rejecting an as-applied challenge to Daniel’s Law by a journalist who sought to publish the Cape May home address of a New Brunswick public safety director, the Court found that while the address was a matter of public concern, the law was narrowly tailored to serve a state interest of the highest order.
Facts of Kratovil v. City of New Brunswick
In 2023, plaintiff Charles Kratovil learned through a records request pursuant to the Open Public Records Act (OPRA) that the voting address of defendant Anthony Caputo, the New Brunswick Police Director, was in the Borough of Cape May. Kratovil, the editor of news outlet New Brunswick Today, began working on a story about Caputo’s residence, suggesting that Caputo lived too far from New Brunswick to effectively discharge his public duties.
After Kratovil disclosed Caputo’s address to local officials, Caputo notified Kratovil that he was a covered person under Daniel’s Law, and requested that Kratovil refrain from republishing his exact home address. Daniel’s Law applies to the home address and unpublished home telephone number of a “covered person,” defined as “an active, formerly active, or retired judicial officer, law enforcement officer, or child protective investigator in the Division of Child Protection and Permanency, . . . or prosecutor, and any immediate family member residing in the same household” of such an official.
Kratovil filed suit, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief and asserting that Daniel’s Law as applied to him violates the New Jersey Constitution’s guarantees of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. The trial court rejected Kratovil’s as-applied challenge to Daniel’s Law and dismissed his complaint, concluding that Kratovil had the right to publish that Caputo lived in Cape May but not to publish Caputo’s precise home address.
The Appellate Division affirmed the trial court’s judgment. It held that as applied to Kratovil, Daniel’s Law does not violate constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. It further concurred with the trial court that the statute supports a state interest of the highest order and that it is narrowly tailored to serve that state interest, given that Kratovil was free to state in his article that Caputo lived in Cape May without disclosing his exact address.
NJ Supreme Court’s Decision in Kratovil v. City of New Brunswick
The New Jersey Supreme Court affirmed. “As the parties agree and the trial court and Appellate Division determined, Daniel’s Law serves a state interest of the highest order: the protection of certain public officials and their immediate family members living in the same household so that those officials can perform their duties without fear of reprisal,” Justice Anne Patterson wrote. “We consider Daniel’s Law, as applied to prevent Kratovil’s proposed republication of Caputo’s exact home address, to be narrowly tailored to serve that state interest.”
In reaching its decision, the New Jersey Supreme Court relied on the First Amendment principles stated in Smith v. Daily Mail Publishing Co., 443 U.S. 97, 98, 102-03 (1979), and Florida Star v. B.J.F., 491 U.S. 524, 530 (1989). Under the test established by the Supreme Court in those cases, the New Jersey Supreme Court’s first inquiry was whether Caputo’s home address is (1) truthful information that was (2) lawfully obtained and is (3) of public significance. It determined that the contested information — Caputo’s exact home address in Cape May — is related to Kratovil’s proposed story, and the subject matter of the story — a public official’s alleged failure to perform his duties because he lived hours from the community he served — is clearly a matter of public concern.
The New Jersey Supreme Court next addressed whether the challenged law “serves ‘a need to further a state interest of the highest order.’” In answering in the affirmative, it noted that all parties agree that Daniel’s Law serves a state interest of the highest order. Finally, the Court determined whether Daniel’s Law, as applied to Kratovil, is narrowly tailored to promote the state interest it was enacted to serve.
According to the New Jersey Supreme Court, as applied to Kratovil, “Daniel’s Law as written is narrowly tailored to achieve the state interest of the highest order: protection of certain public officials from harm and the threat of harm so that they can perform their public duties without fear of reprisal.”
In support, the Court noted that the law is expressly limited to discrete categories of current and former public officials viewed by the Legislature to be at particular risk: judges, law enforcement officers, child protective investigators in the Division of Child Protection and Permanency, and prosecutors.
Additionally, Daniel’s Law implicates only two categories of information: the covered person’s home address and the covered person’s unpublished home telephone number.
As further evidence that the law is narrowly tailored, the New Jersey Supreme Court emphasized that its strict notice requirement ensures that the statute is not a trap for the unwary; to the contrary, following receipt of the statutory notice, the recipient has an opportunity to identify the specific information subject to restrictions on disclosure and take steps to maintain the confidentiality of that information.
Finally, the New Jersey Supreme Court found that because Daniel’s Law complies with the First Amendment principles of Florida Star and Daily Mail, it also conforms to the freedom of speech and press guarantees, set forth in Article I, Paragraph 6 of the New Jersey Constitution, that Kratovil invoked in his appeal.