Court of Petty Appeals: Dumb 1L v. Fake NGSL

Dumb 1L

v.

Fake NGSL

78 U.Va 15 (2025)

Kaufmann, J., delivers the opinion of the Court, in which Demitry, C.J., Wu, Vanger, and Becker, J.J. join. Berklich, J. concurs in part and dissents in part.

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

This matter comes before the court under interesting circumstances. Dumb 1L seeks preventative relief in this court after he (yes, of course it’s a he) put extremely personal information into a form he believed was run by NGSL leadership. In reality, Dumb 1L fell for the oldest trick in the book: preying on law students who think that, for some reason, now that they are in law school they are “cool.” Plaintiff seeks an order from the Court prohibiting the form-maker from releasing the information that was surreptitiously drawn from him.

Notably, however, Dumb 1L fails to name a proper defendant in this suit because the identity of the form-maker remains unknown. Plaintiff served the lawsuit on the directors of the Libel show, but they have refused to file a response and deny any and all involvement in the hoax.

Facts

Over the winter break, a mass email was sent, seemingly at random, to select UVa law students. It instructed recipients to look over their shoulders before reading the rest of the message. It then congratulated each person on their acceptance into NGSL. For those unfamiliar, NGSL is a not-so-secret student organization at the Law School, membership for which requires being “tapped” by existing affiliates. The email also included a link to a Google Form survey, which needed to be submitted to secure a spot in the group.

Within the hour, real NGSL leadership had sent out a message in the UVa Law GroupMe disclaiming any involvement in the email and instructing people not to respond. But Dumb 1L was so overjoyed by his selection that he filled out the form the second he received it. The Court recognizes that Dumb 1L and similarly situated students were hoping for “community” and “camaraderie,” leading to their oversight and lack of discretion. But unfortunately, being desperate is not a legal defense. Incentivizing common sense must outweigh. 

Dumb 1L refuses to disclose all of the information he put into the survey, so he is basing his legal claim on only one of his answers. In response to “Does size matter?”, Dumb 1L wrote in the “Other” field: “only if Dean Dugas says so.” Plaintiff alleges that if this information were to be publicized, it would have a negative impact on his reputation in the Law School community and diminish his job prospects. Dumb 1L recently received a call back from Cravath and worries that this scandal would give them a reason to reject him.

Discussion

Despite the Court’s sympathy for Dumb 1L’s plight, there is not one legal claim that provides a basis for the relief he seeks. It is difficult to bring a preventative defamation claim because it cannot be based on a suspicion of future speech. Dumb 1L cannot even articulate who possesses the information he wishes to keep secret. He speculates that the directors of the Libel sent out the fake email to use during their show, but he has only provided conclusory evidence on this issue. 

As a result, Dumb 1L’s case is dismissed for a lack of ripeness and a failure to identify defendants. 

Berklich, J. concurring in part and dissenting in part.

While identifying things like an actual or imminent harm, and a person to bring suit against, are essential parts of any case, even in the Court of Petty Appeals, we should not ignore the furtherance of idle bickering and gossip that entertaining this suit would bring.

Allowing for discovery to ensue could presumably root out the mystery “soft baller” who propositioned this form to the entire school. As of now, this figure remains under wraps. But with sufficient RFAs, ROGs, and RFPs, they could be unmasked, and the Law School would have the opportunity to point fingers. This is of acute interest to this Court and this Paper. In re Mystery of the Nimble-footed Lub’r, -23 U.Va 4, 17 (1925) (“the river of pettiness flows by the grace of the fountainhead of incriminating information”).

However, the chance that this menace in fact does release the information submitted to the form is too good to pass up. I, for one, would like to see a resume book of everyone who emailed theirs to the provided address. And in the chance that this person is uncovered, and is pressured to not release by further litigation, I would suggest, unusually, that this case be dismissed with prejudice and total preclusion as to prevent any more litigation. #releasethesoftballfiles.