Court of Petty Appeals: Microsoft v. Jane Doe

Microsoft

 v.

Jane Doe

78 U.Va 2 (2025)

Wu, J., delivers the opinion of the Court.

This suit comes before us on appeal from the District Court of Petty Claims. Jane Doe, a second-year student at the University of Virginia School of Law, sued Microsoft Corporation for damages arising out of the recurring delivery of blank emails by its Outlook platform. Plaintiff alleges that the Outlook application, despite its advertised purpose of enabling communication, regularly delivered emails from law school faculty, administrators, and student organizations that contained, quote, “absolutely nothing.”

The District Court found that Ms. Doe had suffered actual harm, holding that “emails purporting to contain content, but actually being as empty as a callback interview email in October, create legal injury.” It awarded nominal damages and injunctive relief in the form of a strongly worded email to Microsoft IT (which, unfortunately, was also blank).

Microsoft appealed. We reverse.

I

At the heart of this case lies a factual dispute over whether Jane Doe has truly been harmed. To hear her tell it—and we did, at length—she opened no fewer than fourteen emails between April 22 and August 4, 2025 that appeared completely blank. Some bore the subject lines “URGENT: REGISTRATION CHANGE” and “ACTION REQUIRED – Read Immediately.” One was simply titled “. . .” and, chillingly, lived up to the ambiguity. All rendered nothing when opened, in both the desktop and mobile versions of Outlook.

In response, Ms. Doe did what law students do best: she panicked, Googled the problem, tried six to eight overlapping tech forums, and then performed the holy trinity of troubleshooting–clear cache, restart app, and cry. After receiving no helpful guidance from Microsoft support articles—most of which amounted to the “restart and pray” method—she resorted to contacting the company itself. She was told to “try the web version,” which, while sounding promising, was in fact only marginally less blank.

After three weeks of refreshing, forum-scouring, and spiritual bargaining, Ms. Doe filed suit, alleging emotional distress, academic interference, and “digital abandonment.”

The District Court agreed. It found that Microsoft’s software failed to render emails in a timely or readable manner, that its support systems were functionally non-responsive, and that Ms. Doe had suffered concrete harm in the form of “confusion, delay, and a total existential meltdown.”

II

We do not question the sincerity of Ms. Doe’s distress, but we do question whether it rises to the level of a legal injury. Students, after all, are a dramatic people. This is a population that experiences a minor heart attack every time a professor says, “Interesting answer, but—” The record reflects that Ms. Doe reported “feeling gaslit by her inbox,” which, while evocative, does not appear in the U.S. Code or Restatement (Third) of Torts.

Outlook is, admittedly, Outlook. Its interface is unlovable. Its features are inconsistent. Its search bar functions less as a retrieval tool and more as a suggestion box to the void. But inconvenience is not injury. We cannot allow subjective frustration to dictate software liability. Otherwise, we would be forced to strike down the entirety of NetBadge, SIS, and any printer built before 2020 (which we may revisit at another time).

Furthermore, the District Court relied heavily on the fact that Ms. Doe was unable to read emails about time-sensitive academic matters. But under cross-examination, Doe admitted that she did eventually obtain the relevant information through GroupMe, Slack, hallway whispers, or telepathy.

III

The Court is also concerned that the District Court failed to adequately weigh Microsoft’s defense. Outlook, the company explains, is a professional-grade software intended for enterprise use. If law students struggle to use it, that is “not a bug, but a feature.” The idea, apparently, is that future lawyers must suffer now so they will be desensitized to suffering later. While this philosophy is bleak, it is consistent with longstanding traditions within the 1L curriculum and the career of lawyering.

Moreover, Microsoft offered evidence that a majority of emails, even when blank in the app, were viewable in “classic light mode on the mobile browser version of Firefox,” which is roughly the digital equivalent of saying, “just check if the letter arrived at your second home in Vermont.” We do not endorse this solution. But neither does the law require Outlook to be convenient. It only requires that Outlook technically function—eventually. We find that it does.

IV

Finally, we note that the District Court’s damages award, while modest, creates a dangerous precedent. If Outlook’s blank emails constitute legal harm, what next? Will a student sue Westlaw for crashing during journal tryouts? Will Lexis be held liable for the emotional impact of too many color-coded boxes? Where does it end?

We are not prepared to walk that path. Not because the law forbids it, but because we simply do not have the stamina.

Accordingly, we reverse the District Court’s finding of liability. We vacate the injunctive relief. We encourage Jane Doe to continue her noble struggle—privately, quietly, and offline.

It is so ordered.

Demitry, C.J., concurring in the judgment.

I join the Court in reversing the District Court’s decision. I write separately, not because I disagree with my colleagues’ reasoning, but because I wish to clarify what, precisely, has transpired here.

Ms. Doe’s claim rests on a category error: she expected Microsoft Outlook to function as a communication tool. This expectation is not only unreasonable—it is ahistorical. Outlook was never designed to transmit content; it was designed to transmit dread. For decades, it has faithfully performed this task. The “blank email” is therefore not a defect, but the software’s purest expression. To punish Microsoft for this would be akin to fining Law School groundskeepers for mowing the lawn too evenly.

I

The plaintiff testified that she experienced confusion, anxiety, and even an “existential meltdown.” To this I say: welcome to law school. The curriculum itself is structured around uncertainty. The Socratic method is nothing more than a recurring delivery of blank content in verbal form. Outlook, then, is merely preparing students for class. Indeed, when a professor responds “Interesting, but—,” what follows is rarely more enlightening than Doe’s empty inbox.

II

I also concur to emphasize the policy stakes. To call blank emails a tort would open the floodgates to claims against every malfunctioning digital system that students encounter. Westlaw would be enjoined for disappearing footnotes; NetBadge for reminding us daily of our mortality; LawWeb for continuing to exist. We cannot permit courts to become the Office of Technology Services for the Disenchanted.

III

Finally, I note that Doe did not suffer in vain. She claims her “support tickets went unanswered.” But this is not abandonment—it is initiation. Lawyering often involves shouting into the void and receiving no reply. Microsoft has merely given her a head start. One might even argue that she should be paying them tuition.

For these reasons, I concur in the judgment. Microsoft is guilty only of consistency.

Kaufmann, J., dissenting.

I dissent from the majority’s opinion because of its disregard for the everyday suffering of an individual frustrated with technology. The majority’s framing of this issue is too narrow—limited solely to the frustration of law students. In ruling in Microsoft’s favor, my fellow justices contend “that future lawyers must suffer now so they will be desensitized to suffering later.”

However, these institutions should not be shielded from liability simply because law students have signed up for three years of self-inflicted pain. What about the poor Darden students who have never experienced suffering? Are we to leave them high and dry? No, we must protect the most vulnerable among us.

The majority also employs an unconvincing, albeit visceral, slippery-slope argument: “If Outlook’s blank emails constitute legal harm, what next? Will a student sue Westlaw for crashing during journal tryouts? Will Lexis be held liable for the emotional impact of too many color-coded boxes? Where does it end?” To which I reply yes; yes; and can’t stop won’t stop. If there is any slippery slope to tolerate, it is one in which large corporations known for a lack of consumer protection are toppled. Mwah-ha-ha.

I respectfully dissent.