|
|
Posted: Friday, 22 January 2010 8:04AM
Judge tosses Twitter libel suit
|
CHICAGO (STMW) -- In 140 characters, the story can be told: A judge has tossed the libel suit against an Uptown tenant for her Twitter post on apartment mold.
Cook County Circuit Court Judge Diane Larsen this week threw out Horizon Realty Group’s libel suit against Amanda Bonnen, who had sent out a tweet complaining about mold in a Horizon apartment.
The judge wrote in her brief decision: “the court finds the tweet nonactionable as a matter of law.”
When the suit was filed and the media picked up on it, the story went viral — prompting freedom-of-speech discussion in this age of social media.
In filing the suit last summer, Horizon claimed its reputation was hurt when an Amanda Bonnen, using the handle “abonnen” posted: “Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it’s okay.”
But Bonnen’s attorney Leslie Ann Reis said the case against her client didn’t meet the legal definition of defamation.
“A defendant needs to have made a false statement concerning the plaintiff, that there was a publication to a third party and that the publication of that statement hurt the plaintiff, and you have to reach each of those hurdles to prevail on a defamation claim,”
said Reis, Assistant Professor and Director for the Center for Information Technology and Privacy Law at John Marshall Law School. She helped defend Bonnen in the libel case.
“Ms. Bonnen’s statements didn’t reach that definition of defamation,” Reis said, adding: “It could be easily construed as being her opinion,” which is different from libelous.
The case was dismissed with prejudice, so it can’t be filed again.
The Chicago-based Horizon Realty couldn’t be reached for comment on Thursday, a day after the case was dismissed.
But last July the company issued a statement explaining that this all bubbled to the surface after Bonnen filed suit June 2 against the company for allegedly violating the city’s landlord ordinance, and she moved out of the apartment June 30.
Some time after that, the company came across the May “moldy” Twitter post.
Jeff Michael, whose family has run Horizon for 25 years, told the Sun-Times at the time the suit was filed that they had not approached Bonnen about taking down the post.
“We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization,” he said.
Bonnen’s attorney said her client is thankful the case is behind her.
“Certainly the publicity surprised her and she’s extremely happy to get on with her life at this point,” Reis said.
And while her client did nothing wrong, Reis said this is a cautionary tale in this age of posting the details of our lives — and our opinions — on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites.
“It’s an important point we’re trying to stress to our students,” Reis said. “With any of our social media out there today, you need to think twice about what you write there. Social media postings are being looked at by lots of people and lots of entities that people don’t think about, whether that’s employers, whether that’s opponents in litigation, and we all need to think about that.”
|
Sun-Times Media Wire Chicago Sun-Times 2010. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
|
|
|
|
E-Mail Story
Print Story
