UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF INDIANA 

SOUTH BEND DIVISION 

RACHEL A. WHITAKER AND

RICHARD L. DUNKIN, 

 PLAINTIFFS, 

 VS. 

APPRISS, INC., 

 DEFENDANT. 

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CAUSE NO. 3:13-CV-826-RLM-CAN

OPINION and ORDER 

 

 Appriss, Inc. asks the court to dismiss the claims of Rachel A. Whitaker 

and Richard L. Dunkin for failure to state a claim. Appriss says the sale of 

police department motor vehicle accident reports doesn’t violate the Driver’s 

Privacy Protection Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2721-2725, because the reports are police 

department records, not motor vehicle records. Ms. Whitaker and Mr. Dunkin 

contend that the DPPA regulates the disclosure of personal information taken 

from motor vehicle records and the accident reports contain such information. 

 To survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, a complaint must allege 

facts that, if accepted as true, “state a claim to relief that is plausible on its 

face.” McReynolds v. Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., 694 F.3d 873, 885 (7th Cir. 

2012) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). “A claim 

has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the 

court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the 

misconduct alleged.” Id. (quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009)). 
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When evaluating a motion to dismiss, the court accepts the complaint’s factual 

allegations as true and draws all possible inferences in the plaintiff’s favor. 

Lake v. Neal, 585 F.3d 1059, 1060 (7th Cir. 2009). 

 Ms. Whitaker and Mr. Dunkin were involved in separate car accidents. 

For each accident, police officers completed an Indiana Officer’s Standard 

Crash Report that included personal information about Ms. Whitaker and Mr. 

Dunkin that could have been found on their driver’s licenses or car titles. 

Police officers in Indiana, and six other states, use Appriss’s software to 

complete accident reports. Appriss is the exclusive supplier of the accident 

reports, and the public can buy individual reports or a subscription service 

from Appriss’s website -- www.buycrash.com. About a month after the 

accidents, Ms. Whitaker and Mr. Dunkin received unsolicited letters from 

lawyers seeking to represent them in personal injury cases, and Ms. Whitaker 

got an unsolicited letter from a chiropractor offering his services. Appriss sold 

the accident reports from the car crashes that Ms. Whitaker and Mr. Dunkin 

were involved in to the third parties who then commercially solicited them. 

 Appriss argues that police department motor vehicle accident reports are 

police department records, not motor vehicle records protected by the DPPA. 

Ms. Whitaker and Mr. Dunkin argue that the DPPA protects their personal 

information derived from motor vehicle records. Both parties are right; neither 

argument carries the day. 
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 The Driver’s Privacy Protection Act of 1994 prohibits the “release and use 

of certain personal information from State motor vehicle records.” McCready v. 

White, 417 F.3d 700, 701 (7th Cir. 2005) (quoting the caption of 18 U.S.C. §§ 

2721-2725). The DPPA provides injured parties with a private right of action. 

18 U.S.C. § 2724. The DPPA’s general prohibition is as follows: 

A State department of motor vehicles, and any officer, employee, or 

contractor thereof, shall not knowingly disclose or otherwise make 

available to any person or entity: (1) personal information . . . 

about any individual obtained by the department in connection 

with a motor vehicle record, [except as allowed by the fourteen 

permitted uses found in subsection (b)]. . . . 

18 U.S.C. § 2721(a)(1). The statute lists fourteen permissible disclosures of 

personal information, such as for use by a government agency when carrying 

out its functions. Maracich v. Spears, 133 S. Ct. 2191, 2195, 186 L. Ed. 2d 275 

(2013); 18 U.S.C. § 2721(b)(1)-(14). Neither party asserts that an exception 

applies to the disclosure at issue. The DPPA defines “motor vehicle record” to 

be “any record that pertains to a motor vehicle operator’s permit, motor vehicle 

title, motor vehicle registration, or identification card issued by a department of 

motor vehicles.” 18 U.S.C. § 2725(1). Appriss argues that an accident report 

isn’t one of the documents listed in the statute and doesn’t pertain – “belong as 

a part, member, accessory, or product,” Lake v. Neal, 585 F.3d 1059, 1061 (7th 

Cir. 2009) – to any of those documents, so it’s not a motor vehicle record. 

 Appriss compares the accident reports to the voter registration form in 

Lake v. Neal, 585 F.3d 1059 (7th Cir. 2009), that the plaintiff completed at the 

same time that he applied for a driver’s license from the state’s department of 
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motor vehicles. Id. at 1060. The department of motor vehicles forwarded his 

voter registration form to the board of election, and later, another person 

obtained personal information about the plaintiff from the board. Id. The 

plaintiff alleged that the board violated the DPPA by disclosing his personal 

information. The court of appeals held that a voter registration form – filled out 

separately and at the applicant’s option – didn’t pertain to any of the statute’s 

listed documents, and – but for the fact that it was filled out simultaneously to 

the driver’s license application – had nothing to do with a motor vehicle record. 

Id. at 1061. 

 Ms. Whitaker and Mr. Dunkin don’t argue that the accident reports meet 

the statutory definition of a motor vehicle record. They contend that the DPPA 

protects not only records, but also information associated with those records. 

The court agrees. The accident report doesn’t have to fall within the statutory 

definition of a motor vehicle record to contain information the DPPA protects. 

The DPPA prohibits the disclosure of personal information “obtained by the 

department [of motor vehicles] in connection with a motor vehicle record.” 18 

U.S.C. § 2721(a). To this extent, the court agrees with Ms. Whitaker’s and Mr. 

Dunkin’s contention that the DPPA protects records and information 

associated with those records. 

 The parties agree that the DPPA considers certain information set forth 

in the accident reports, such as driver identification numbers, names, and 

addresses, to be personal information. See 18 U.S.C. § 2725(3) (personal 
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information is “information that identifies an individual, including an 

individual’s photograph, social security number, driver identification number, 

name, address (but not the 5-digit zip code), telephone number, and medical or 

disability information . . . .”). The parties dispute whether the DPPA protects 

the information at issue in this case. 

 Appriss concedes that some of the information in the accident reports is 

information also contained in motor vehicle records and could be obtained from 

those records. But many documents -- telephone directories, voter registration 

rolls, litigation records, arrest records, websites, personal checks, and publicly 

filed deeds and mortgages – contain names and addresses. Appriss argues that 

the DPPA doesn’t protect the information if it could also be obtained from 

sources other than motor vehicle records. The court can’t agree. Although 

many different public documents might disclose names, addresses, and even 

driver identification numbers, the DPPA nonetheless specifically protects this 

personal information if the state department of motor vehicles derived the 

information in connection with a motor vehicle record and then disclosed it. 

See Dahlstrom v. Sun-Times Media, LLC, No. 12 C 658, 2013 WL 6069267, at 

*2 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 18, 2013) (“[T]he press can publish that an officer has brown 

eyes without violating the DPPA as long as it did not obtain that information 

from the officer’s motor vehicle record.”) certificate of appealability granted, No. 

12 C 658, 2014 WL 1677099 (N.D. Ill. Apr. 24, 2014). 
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 Ms. Whitaker and Mr. Dunkin contend that the personal information in 

the accident reports was derived from motor vehicle records, so the DPPA 

protects the accident reports. They argue that the DPPA’s caption – “Prohibition 

on release and use of certain personal information from State motor vehicle 

records” 18 U.S.C. §§ 2721-2725 – supports their contention that the DPPA 

protects the personal information in the accident reports that was taken from 

motor vehicle records. 

 In Senne v. Village of Palatine, Illinois, 695 F.3d 597 (7th Cir. 2012), a 

village police officer placed a parking citation on the windshield of the plaintiff’s 

vehicle in public view on a public way. Id. at 600. The citation displayed the 

vehicle owner’s name, address, driver’s license number, date of birth, sex, 

height, and weight. Id. The village police department got this information from 

a database originating with the state’s department of motor vehicles. Id. at 599. 

The plaintiff alleged that the village’s placement of his personal information on 

the parking ticket when that information was obtained from motor vehicle 

records violated the DPPA. Id. The court of appeals noted that the initial 

disclosure of the information by the department of motor vehicles to the village 

police department was a permissible use of the personal information under the 

DPPA and the parties didn’t challenge that disclosure. Id. at 602. But the 

second disclosure – the village police officer placing the parking ticket on the 

windshield of the car – was a plausible claim that the village police officer’s 
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action violated the DPPA. Id. at 609.1 The parking ticket, issued by the village 

police department, wasn’t a motor vehicle record, but its disclosure of 

information derived from motor vehicle records could violate the DPPA. So Ms. 

Whitaker and Mr. Dunkin are correct that personal information derived from 

motor vehicle records is protected by the DPPA – with the important caveat that 

the statute requires the source of that information to be the state department 

of motor vehicles. 

 Ms. Whitaker and Mr. Dunkin argue that the medium or method of the 

disclosure of personal information derived from motor vehicle records doesn’t 

matter. But the DPPA prohibits the knowing disclosure of personal information 

by “[a] State department of motor vehicles, and any officer, employee, or 

contractor thereof.” 18 U.S.C. § 2721(a). The village police department in Senne 

v. Village of Palatine, Illinois, 695 F.3d 597 (7th Cir. 2012), disclosed personal 

information that it got from the state department of motor vehicles. Id. at 599. 

Similarly, in Deicher v. City of Evansville, Wisconsin, 545 F.3d 537 (7th Cir. 

2008), a police officer obtained the plaintiff’s address from the state department 

of motor vehicle records and then disclosed the address to her ex-husband. Id. 

at 538-539. A jury found that the disclosure violated the DPPA. Id. at 540. 

Again, the original source of the information was the state department of motor 

vehicles. 

 

1 The court later granted summary judgment for the village because the reason for the 

disclosure was a permissible use of the personal information under the Act. Senne v. Vill. of 

Palatine, No. 10 C 5434, 2013 WL 6197092, at *8 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 27, 2013). 
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 The Supreme Court analyzed whether an attorney’s solicitation of clients 

for a lawsuit fell within the scope of the DPPA exception that allows a party to 

obtain personal information for use in anticipation of litigation in Maracich v. 

Spears, 133 S. Ct. 2191, 2195-2196, 186 L. Ed. 2d 275 (2013). The attorney 

obtained personal information from the state department of motor vehicles, 

then sent solicitation letters to the individuals asking them to join lawsuits 

against car dealerships. 133 S. Ct. at 2196-2197. The Court held that sending 

communications for the predominant purpose of solicitation isn’t a permitted 

use of personal information under the Act. 133 S. Ct. at 2210. Yet again, the 

source of the personal information was the state department of motor vehicles. 

The method or medium of the disclosure is important as it relates to the 

original source of the information. The source of the personal information in 

the accident reports must be examined to decide whether the DPPA protects 

the information. 

 Appriss contends that accident reports document a law enforcement 

event, that such documents routinely list the names and addresses for 

participants. Appriss argues that accident reports contain this information for 

people involved in an accident who don’t have a driver’s license, such as 

passengers, pedestrians, bicyclists, witnesses, and drivers without a license, 

either driving unlawfully or who don’t have it on their person. Appriss 

concludes that a driver’s license or car title is only one way that police officers 

could obtain the personal information contained in the accident report. Again, 
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though, the ability to find the personal information elsewhere doesn’t negate 

the DPPA. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 2721(a)(1), 2725(3). 

 Appriss argues that police officers generated the accident reports and 

that it got the reports from the state police department, not the state 

department of motor vehicles. Appriss claims that Congress didn’t seek to 

remedy the disclosure of personal information by regulating the use of 

information obtained from government agencies other than the state 

department of motor vehicles. The court agrees in part, but Appriss’s argument 

sweeps too broadly. If the original source of the other government agency’s 

information is the state department of motor vehicles, the DPPA protects the 

information throughout its travels. See Senne v. Vill. of Palatine, Ill., 695 F.3d 

597, 609 (7th Cir. 2012) (police officer’s disclosure of personal information 

obtained from the state department of motor vehicles may violate the Act); 

Deicher v. City of Evansville, Wis., 545 F.3d 537, 540 (7th Cir. 2008) (police 

officer’s disclosure of personal information obtained from the state department 

of motor vehicles violated the Act). 

 A comparable case is Mattivi v. Russell, No. CIV.A. 01-WM-533(BNB, 

2002 WL 31949898 (D. Colo. Aug. 2, 2002),2 in which the plaintiff was involved 

 

2 The defendants cite several state court decisions that discuss the DPPA, but in the 

Freedom of Information Act or state open record law context. The decisions are factually and 

legally distinguishable and warrant nothing more than a citation. Atlas Transit, Inc. v. Korte, 

249 Wis. 2d 242, 638 N.W.2d 625 (Wis. Ct. App. Nov. 13, 2001); Davis v. Freedom of Info. 

Comm’n, 47 Conn. Supp. 309, 790 A.2d 1188 (Conn. Super. Ct. 2001) aff’d, 259 Conn. 45, 787 

A.2d 530 (2002); New Richmond News v. City of Richmond, No. 13-CV-163 (St. Croix, Wisc. 

Cir. Ct., Mar. 20, 2014) (See Appriss’s Notice of Supplemental Authority Doc. No 17 Ex. 1). 
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in a single-car accident, and the responding police officer completed a routine 

accident report that included the plaintiff’s name, address, telephone number, 

and driver’s license number. Id. at *1. A newspaper asked the police 

department to confirm facts about the accident, and in turn, the police 

department gave the newspaper a copy of the accident report. Id. The 

newspaper then published the accident report verbatim, and the plaintiff 

alleged that the publication of his personal information violated the DPPA. Id. 

Based solely on the statutory language, the court concluded that the DPPA only 

protects records issued by a department of motor vehicles and the police 

department wasn’t such a department, the accident report wasn’t a motor 

vehicle record, and the newspaper’s publication of the report didn’t violate the 

DPPA. Id. at *4. The court agrees with Appriss and the Mattvi court that the 

accident report itself isn’t a motor vehicle record, but in this circuit, disclosure 

of personal information that was obtained by and from the department of motor 

vehicles may nonetheless violate the DPPA. See e.g., Senne v. Vill. of Palatine, 

Ill., 695 F.3d 597, 602-603 (7th Cir. 2012) (police officer’s disclosure of 

personal information, obtained from the state department of motor vehicles, in 

a parking citation, a record not issued by a department of motor vehicles, may 

violate the DPPA). 

 At this point, we return to the standard by which courts measure 

motions to dismiss for failure to state a claim. Ms. Whitaker and Mr. Dunkin 

allege in their complaint that the accident reports contained their personal 
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information that was obtained from their driver’s license and vehicle title 

information – motor vehicle records maintained by the Indiana Bureau of Motor 

Vehicles. But it isn’t clear how the police officer who created the accident report 

obtained the driver’s license and vehicle title information – from the plaintiffs 

themselves or from the state department of motor vehicles. At oral argument, 

the plaintiffs confirmed that the omission at this point was intentional. The 

DPPA forbids the state department of motor vehicles and any person or entity 

authorized to view its records from disclosing personal information. Senne v. 

Vill. of Palatine, Ill., 695 F.3d 597, 603 (7th Cir. 2012). Drawing all inferences 

in the plaintiffs’ favor, it’s plausible that the personal information in the 

accident reports was obtained from the state department of motor vehicles, and 

thus Ms. Whitaker and Mr. Dunkin might have a claim under the DPPA. For 

this reason, the court DENIES the defendant’s motion to dismiss for failure to 

state a claim (Doc. No. 12). 

 SO ORDERED. 

 ENTERED: September 11, 2014 

 /s/ Robert L. Miller, Jr. 

 Judge 

 United States District Court