A Delaware judge has upheld an administrative ruling that denied unemployment benefits to a Chancery Court employee who was fired for contacting Mark Zuckerberg to ask the Facebook CEO for support with her personal business venture.

Superior Court Judge Andrea Rocanelli has ruled that Donna White, a court clerk for the Court of Chancery in Wilmington, was terminated for “just cause” for using her state email account in 2017 to solicit Zuckerberg's help for an unspecified “product” that she was developing.

According to court documents, the subject line of the Oct. 6 email read: “Delaware Trial.”

“You don't know me, but I am looking forward to meeting you in Delaware for the trial,” White said in the correspondence, sent to Zuckerberg's company email account. “I am the court clerk, and I was hoping to get your ear about my product. Please let me know if this is something you'd be willing to guide me through and help me accomplish.”

In her email signature, White identified herself as “lead clerk,” a title that the Chancery Court said does not exit in Delaware.

Zuckerberg, who at the time was the subject of a shareholder lawsuit over a planned restructuring of the company's stock, turned the email over to Chancery Court officials, and White was fired the following month, according to court documents.

Legal filings revealed that Chancellor Andre G. Bouchard and a Delaware attorney raised concerns that the email “put the court in a bad light.”

Multiple calls placed to a phone number White provided in court filings were not returned. A spokesman for the Delaware courts directed inquiries to Chancery Court Administrator Karlis Johnson, who did not return repeated calls seeking comment for this story.

White, who had been employed with the Chancery Court since August 2010, was denied unemployment benefits after the Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board agreed that she had violated the judiciary's employee code of conduct, which bars court employees from using their positions to obtain personal benefits.

On appeal to the Superior Court, White said she sent the email two weeks after the case settled; however, the lawsuit remained pending as both sides continued to battle over attorney fees, though Zuckerberg never did have to testify.

White, who represented herself, said it was “commonplace practice among state employees” to send such emails, citing messages she received during work hours from other employees selling candy bars and Girl Scout cookies. She alleged that her firing was actually the result of claims she filed against the Court of Chancery in early 2017 for harassment and discrimination.

The Chancery Court, represented by an attorney for the Delaware Department of Justice, argued that there was “little question” White had violated the the court's policies and said that her failure to understand the significance of the email “underscores why she is no longer with the court.”

“A communication by a member of the judicial branch to a litigant in an active court case is not going to be ignored,” Deputy Attorney General Kevin R. Slattery said in a filing.

“Whether she intended to use her position or not, White clearly intended to send an email to a court litigant for her own benefit, and this violated any court employee's expected standard of conduct,” he said.

In her decision last week, Rocanelli said that while the Chancery Court has a “progressive” discipline policy, even a single incident of misconduct can establish a basis for just cause termination. The ruling did not address White's claims regarding her earlier allegations discrimination and harassment.

The case, on appeal to the Superior Court, was captioned White v. Court of Chancery.