diff --git a/src/services/quoted-html-transformer.coffee b/src/services/quoted-html-transformer.coffee
index 499652da3..254996a0d 100644
--- a/src/services/quoted-html-transformer.coffee
+++ b/src/services/quoted-html-transformer.coffee
@@ -52,6 +52,8 @@ class QuotedHTMLTransformer
@removeTrailingBr(doc)
DOMUtils.Mutating.removeElements(quoteStringDetector(doc))
+
+ return "" unless doc.children[0]
return doc.children[0].innerHTML
# Finds any trailing BR tags and removes them in place
@@ -88,6 +90,9 @@ class QuotedHTMLTransformer
text = "HTML Parser Error: #{error.toString()}"
doc = domParser.parseFromString(text, "text/html")
NylasEnv.reportError(error)
+
+ # As far as we can tell, when this succeeds, doc /always/ has at least
+ # one child: an node.
return doc
_wholeBodyIsQuote: (doc, quoteElements) ->