A Rockland lawyer is suing Microsoft Corp. for $1.75 million for allegedly failing to fix a balky email service.
David M. Schlachter and his law firm accused Microsoft of tortious business dealings, in a complaint filed last month in Rockland Supreme Court and moved on June 24 to U.S. District Court, White Plains.
“Mr. Schlachter cannot run his law office blind,” the complaint states. “He is now possibly facing such issues as clients leaving the office, ethics violations being brought against him for not responding to communications, missing filing deadlines, and the like.”
WE Communications, a media relations firm that represents Microsoft, acknowledged an email asking for a response to the allegations but did not immediately provide a statement.
Schlachter is based in Suffern and practices in state, bankruptcy, and federal district courts in New York and New Jersey. He focuses on real estate and estate matters such as loan modifications, foreclosures and probate.
In 2010 he began using Microsoft Office 365, a free service that included email and a website. He switched to another web hosting service in 2017, when Microsoft started charging for its service, but he paid to keep his Microsoft Outlook account.
On May 10, when he tried to get his emails, he was asked to verify his account via a text message or phone call placed to his cell phone. But when he tried to do so, according to the complaint, Microsoft was unable to authenticate his account.
Schlachter says could no longer retrieve emails or log into his administrative portal. When he called Microsoft, he was allegedly put on hold for three hours and then told he had to contact the business technical service team.
A case was opened on May 12, but for four days, he claims, he waited on hold on the customer support line for three to five hours at a time until the line went dead. When he eventually reached someone on May 15, he was promised a call back by noon.
“No one called him,” the complaint states.
On May 16, the business technical support team allegedly promised to fix the problem in 24 to 36 hours.
Schlachter says he called back twice a day over the next five days, only to be told they were working on it and the problem would be resolved soon.
As of May 24, when the lawsuit was filed in Rockland Supreme Court, Schlachter claims the problem had not been fixed. Subsequent filings there, and in federal court where the case was moved on June 24, do not say whether the problem has been fixed in the past five weeks.
Schlachter states in a May 24 affidavit that the email account is vital to his law practice.
He uses the account to file cases and make payments and to communicate with clients, judges, adversaries, colleagues and court officials.
“I have been locked out since May 10, 2023,” he stated. “There is no reason why Microsoft cannot remedy this immediately.”
He is demanding $750,000 “for loss of business, risk of business and ethical and professional licenses,” and $1 million in punitive damages “for wantonly delaying the simple remedy of aiding one single email access.”
Microsoft is represented by Manhattan attorney Michael Lieberman. Schlachter is representing himself.
This should be a class action. Microsoft should be forced to use the following tag line. “Microsoft, for software that pretty much kind of works.â€
One of my favorite Microsoft error messages, “an error has occurredâ€, no shit, how helpful.