A New Jersey federal judge tossed a proposed class action Friday challenging the Garden State's practice of keeping newborn babies' residual blood spots without parental consent, finding the parents haven't alleged viable Fourth or Fourteenth Amendment claims, in part because the state agreed to destroy the blood spots at issue.
In a 30-page order, U.S. District Judge Georgette Castner granted a motion to dismiss with prejudice, and she rejected outright the parents' arguments that the state's practices violate Fourth Amendment rights against search and seizure.
"Plaintiffs cite no case law supporting their argument that the alleged injury for which they seek relief, the retention of minor plaintiffs' blood spots without consent, is a search in violation of the Fourth Amendment," the order says.
The judge also noted that she's already rejected plaintiffs' claim that the state's retention of blood spots violates a parent's fundamental right to make medical decisions or decisions about the care, custody and control of their children.
The judge said the parents don't have standing to pursue claims arising from the use or potential sharing of blood spots, but even if they did, the state's retention of blood spots without parental consent is not a "medical choice" that implicates a parent's fundamental rights.
Judge Castner noted that the cases and federal regulations that the parents rely on to support their arguments against retention involved state-law claims, as opposed to the constitutional claims asserted in this case. Those cases and regulations also involved the use of blood spots or cells for research without consent, as opposed to mere retention of the blood spots without consent, the order says.
"As such, the court holds that parent plaintiffs have failed to plausibly plead a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment regarding defendants' retention of existing blood spots, and the Jedynak Parent Plaintiffs have failed to plausibly plead a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment regarding defendant's retention of future blood spots," the order says.
The ruling marks an end to a lawsuit that a group of parents — Hannah Lovaglio, Erica Jedynak and Jeremiah Jedynak — filed individually and on behalf of their children in
November 2023.
The suit challenges New Jersey's newborn blood storage practices, and it names as defendants former state health commissioner Kaitlan Baston and Nancy Scotto-Rosato, who is the former assistant commissioner for the Division of Family Health Services, which oversees the newborn testing program in New Jersey.
After the original complaint was filed, the
New Jersey Department of Health voluntarily shortened the blood retention period from 23 years to either two years — if the sample tests negative for all disorders — or 10 years if there is a positive. The litigation, however, continued over the issue of consent.
Over the past three years, Judge Castner threw out or trimmed earlier renditions of the complaint, but she gave the parents multiple chances to amend their allegations, and the parents filed the latest version of their lawsuit in October 2025.
Their amended complaint alleges unlawful search and seizure, and violations of substantive due process under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments on behalf of parents and children.
The suit seeks an order barring the state from retaining any future blood spots post-testing without parental consent, and an order requiring the state to either return or destroy existing blood spots of minors within a year of judgment, unless the parents provide consent.
But in March, the state officials asked the court again to throw out the litigation for good, arguing that the parents failed to state cognizable legal claims under the Fourth or Fourteenth Amendments. The state officials argued that the plaintiffs also lack standing to seek the relief they request, among other defenses.
In her ruling on Friday, the judge found that the plaintiffs have standing to assert due process claims on behalf of the existing blood spots, because they've "alleged actual, ongoing harm arising from defendants' retention of existing blood spots without consent."
As for retaining future blood spots, however, the judge said the suit hasn't alleged harm to satisfy standing by the minors, because minor plaintiffs won't have their blood collected as newborns again, and Lovaglio doesn't intend to have more kids in the future, the order says.
But Erica and Jeremiah Jedynak intend to have more kids, so they have standing to sue on behalf of future blood spots, the order says.
Even so, the judge found that the claims for injunctive relief regarding minor plaintiffs' existing blood spots are moot, because the state has attested that it's destroyed all blood spots older than two years, except for those blood spots for which parents affirmatively consented to longer retention. So ultimately, neither the Fourth Amendment nor the Fourteenth Amendment claims are viable, she found.
Counsel for the plaintiffs and representatives for the state attorney general's office didn't immediately respond to requests for comment Monday.
The case in New Jersey is only one front in broader litigation challenging various aspects of the newborn screening program that have percolated through courts across the nation for years.
In March 2022, a group of parents challenging Michigan's retention of their children's blood spots
secured a consent judgment that ended part of the state's newborn blood spot retention program and required the destruction of about 3.4 million samples.
A separate 2009 lawsuit filed against the
Texas Department of State Health Services similarly resulted in a settlement in which the state was required to destroy over 5 million residual blood spots.
And in 2011, the Minnesota Supreme Court held that newborn blood samples qualify as "genetic information" under the state's Genetic Privacy Act and that the state needed to obtain parental consent to use the genetic material for anything beyond the routine newborn screening. The decision paved the way for a 2014 settlement that led the state's Health Department to destroy 1.1 million blood spots.
Hannah Lovaglio and her children, J.L. and B.L., and Erica and Jeremiah Jedynak and their son, C.J., are represented by C.J. Griffin of
Pashman Stein Walder Hayden PC, and by Robert Frommer, Daniel Woislaw and Christen Mason Hebert of the
Institute for Justice.
Kaitlan Baston and Nancy Scotto-Rosato are represented by Amy Cheung of the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General.
The case is Hannah Lovaglio et al. v. Kaitlan Baston et al., case number
3:23-cv-21803, in the
U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.
--Additional reporting by Marco Poggio. Editing by Kelly Duncan.
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