Intellectual Property Law

@LibelGirl: Call yr atty ASAP

By Tim Armstrong, Derek Bambauer, and William McGeveran.

In an astonishing overreaction, Horizon Realty Group, a large Chicago landlord, has filed a defamation lawsuit against a former tenant, Amanda Bonnen, over this tweet sent on her (now defunct) Twitter account:

@JessB123 You should just come anyway. Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it’s ok.

Assuming the apartment was not, in fact, “moldy,” I think the law may well be on Horizon’s side here. Bonnen’s Twitter stream was public, and a false statement that harms a business can be judged “defamation per se,” meaning that the plaintiff does not need to prove the details of damages. It’s another lesson that social media make many of our previously private conversations public, with potentially serious consequences. (Twitter, of course, is protected from the suit under Section 230.)

But as I’ve said before, just because you can sue doesn’t mean you should. In at least three ways this represents an epic fail for Horizon:

1. Bonnen was an infrequent Twitter user with few followers, variously reported as 15, 20, and 22. While this may technically have been a public statement, in reality very few people probably saw it — until now.

2. Libel lawsuits like this often make companies look like bullies. (Recall the “McLibel” case for an extreme example.) And because this case involves the currently white-hot topic of Twitter, the news is spreading extra-fast.

3. Company executive Jeffrey Michael made things even worse by admitting to the Chicago Sun-Times that the company had made no effort to contact Bonnen before filing suit, but explaining — you can’t make this stuff up — “We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization”. Wow. Is that the attitude you look for in a landlord? That statement from the company in a major newspaper must be ten times worse publicity than a passing tweet.

Talk about making a mountain out of a mold-hill. (Tweet tweet!)

Full post as published by Info/Law on July 28, 2009 (boomark / email).