Hartford has asked a federal court to declare it owes nothing - no defense, no payout - to Data Axle in a privacy class action.
According to a filing submitted on May 6, 2026 in the US District Court for the District of Nebraska, Hartford Fire Insurance Company and Hartford Casualty Insurance Company want a judge to confirm they are off the hook for a putative class action winding through the Northern District of Illinois.
The underlying case, James Quaid et al. v. Data Axle, Inc., centers on a familiar internet-era pitch: the free trial. According to the filing, Data Axle runs two consumer-facing platforms - data-axle.com, aimed at large organizations with complex data needs, and dataaxlegenie.com, designed for small and medium-sized businesses looking to generate leads. Both sites, the underlying plaintiffs allege, let prospective customers peek at real people's names, addresses and other identifiers as a teaser to sell paid subscriptions.
The class plaintiffs - four named individuals representing a proposed class of Illinois and California residents who have never been Data Axle users - say the company used their identities without written consent. They claim violations of the Illinois Right of Publicity Act and a California right-of-publicity statute. The Northern District of Illinois trimmed the California claims on December 9, 2024, declining to extend pendant personal jurisdiction, the filing states.
That is where Hartford's coverage fight comes in. The insurer issued Data Axle a commercial general liability policy and an umbrella policy, both running from March 31, 2023 to March 31, 2024. Hartford says neither responds.
Its argument is essentially this: the underlying suit does not allege bodily injury, property damage, or any of the offenses that the policies cover as "personal and advertising injury." A key endorsement narrows that category to just three things - false arrest, malicious prosecution, and wrongful eviction - and none, Hartford says, are in play here.
Even if coverage were triggered, Hartford argues a stack of exclusions would knock it out. The policies block claims arising from "the violation of a person's right of privacy created by any state or federal act," from "any access to or disclosure" of confidential or personal information, and from violations of state laws regulating the collection or distribution of information. The umbrella policy also carves out personal and advertising injury committed by an insured whose business is "an Internet search, access, content or service provider" - a description Hartford says fits Data Axle.
For carriers and claims professionals, the dispute is a useful look at how narrowly worded endorsements and privacy-related exclusions are being deployed when right-of-publicity claims land on a commercial general liability tower.
The allegations in both the underlying suit and Hartford's filing have not been tested in court. Data Axle has not yet filed a response, and no judge has ruled.
