Attorney General Matt Platkin has asked the court for indefinite pause so talks can continue over state's handling of newborn blood spots. (Photo by Getty Images)
New Jersey is in talks to settle a class action lawsuit seeking to force the state to stop retaining baby blood drawn from newborns after it is used to screen them for diseases.
Attorney General Matt Platkin asked a U.S. District Court judge overseeing the case to indefinitely suspend a pending hearing so his office could continue settlement talks with the plaintiffs, with a check-up proposed in three months’ time.
“Over the past months, the parties have engaged in settlement discussions to try to resolve this dispute in good faith. Those discussions have been productive, and the parties plan to continue negotiating in the hopes of agreeing to a resolution that would ultimately obviate the need for further litigation,” Platkin said in the March 4 letter.
The longstanding screening program is meant to identify rare and potentially deadly conditions in newborns. Under state law, every child born in New Jersey must be screened for 61 disorders within 48 hours of their birth.
But the program drew controversy in 2022 after the state Office of the Public Defender said law enforcement used a subpoena to obtain blood from the program so they could link a child’s father to a 1996 sexual assault.
That DNA analysis was later used as probable cause to obtain a warrant for the father’s DNA, and a public records lawsuit filed by the Office of the Public Defender and the New Jersey Monitor revealed the newborn screening laboratory had received at least five subpoenas from law enforcement over roughly as many years.
The class action lawsuit, launched by the Rev. Hannah Lovaglio and Erica and Jeremy Jedynak, seeks to compel the state to destroy drawn newborn blood after the screening is complete, absent parental consent for longer retention.
Such bloodspots can be kept on file for up to 23 years, according to state records retention schedules.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs confirmed they are negotiating with Platkin’s office and expressed optimism over the settlement talks.
“New Jersey can revise its baby-blood program to become one of the nation’s best, and we’re optimistic that the terms of what we present to the Court will make the Garden State the gold standard for other states to follow,” said Brian Morris, an attorney with the Institute for Justice, which is representing the plaintiffs.
The attorney general’s office declined to comment on pending litigation.
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