A twitter libel suit dismissed

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that an Illinois judge has dismissed a libel suit sparked by a post about mold on the microblogging site Twitter. According to the Sun-Times, Amanda Bonnen had been having a dispute with Horizon Realty, the company that managed the Chicago apartment she was renting, over whether it contained mold. Sometime in May 2009, she posted a tweet that read, “@JessB123 You should just come anyway. Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it's ok.” On June 2, Bonnen filed suit against Horizon, alleging that it had violated Chicago's landlord ordinance. Later that month, she moved. Horizon learned about the tweet and sued Bonnen for libel, seeking more than $50,000 plus court costs. The Sun-Times reported that at the time, Jeff Michael, a member of the family that runs Horizon, said it had not asked Bonnen to remove the post. He said, “We're a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization" -- a quote that earned the company all sorts of probably unwanted fame and probably helped propel the lawsuit onto Wikipedia. As the Sun-Times Live from Law School blog reported, Illinois Circuit Court for Cook County dismissed the case Jan. 20, ruling that the tweet was "nonactionable as a matter of law." Bonnen's attorney, Leslie Ann Reis, told the Sun-Times that the quote could have been construed innocently, as Bonnen's opinion, and so didn't meet the definition of libel. You can find the original complaint and the hand-written dismissal order on this page about the case maintained by the Citizen Media Law Project.

-- Susan Keith