Beware all bloggers and tweeters: What you write may get you sued!
Chicago woman Amanda Bonnen discovered this lesson the hard way. Her 117-character rant on Twitter may cost her more than $50,000 as the result of a defamation lawsuit filed by the target of her ire. That’s $427 a letter!
Bonnen was having trouble with her landlord and complained of alleged mold in her apartment. So like many of us, she ranted about her frustration on Twitter:
But instead of addressing her complaints, Horizon Group Management filed a lawsuit against Bonnen, alleging that her statement damaged the company’s reputation. According to the complaint filed in Cook County court, Bonnen “maliciously and wrongfully published the false and defamatory Tweet on Twitter, thereby allowing the Tweet to be distributed throughout the world.”
What Horizon didn’t recognize is that Bonnen had only 20 followers on Twitter. If Horizon had simply ignored her tweet, or better yet, worked with Bonnen to resolve the matter, then likely nothing would have happened, and Horizon’s reputation would not have been affected.
Instead, by filing this lawsuit, Horizon has generated a wave of negative publicity for itself on a global scale, making headlines from CNN and Fox News TV, to the Chicago Sun-Times and Wall Street Journal, and thousands of blogs in between. Horizon has ensured the very thing they were trying to stop: millions of people around the globe viewing Bonnen’s tweet.
Horizon then took a bad situation and made it worse when Jeffrey Michael, whose family has run Horizon for more than 25 years, said to the Sun-Times: “We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization.” Oops! I doubt “litigious” is the reputation that Horizon is trying to project. Rather, it’s likely the same reputation that most landlords seek: “Caring landlord that provides a safe, clean living environment for its tenants at a reasonable price.”
Every business and individual has the right to defend themselves against false or malicious statements. But if Horizon’s top priority was to preserve its reputation, it appears to have overestimated the reach of a single person on a social network, and underestimated what happens when a large corporation attacks a private citizen “David vs. Goliath-style” on matters of free speech.
This incident has the potential to turn into a public relations disaster like Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah’s couch and ruining his stellar career.
But now that the world is watching, hopefully Horizon will do the right thing and take all that money and effort to sue Bonnen and instead use it to address her concerns. As Hugh Grant famously demonstrated, one can make a PR blunder and still turn it around to their advantage.
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