News
from the absurd world that we live in is that one woman's tweet about
her apartment has landed her a $50,000 lawsuit.
The
Chicago Sun Times is reporting that Horizon Group Management LLC
filed a libel lawsuit against former tenant Amanda Bonnen, claiming
one of her alleged Twitter posts "maliciously and wrongfully"
slammed her apartment at 4242 N. Sheridan and the company managing
it.
What was
her post? "Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for
you? Horizon realty thinks it's okay."
Here is
what I have found out from the articles I have seen. She had maybe 20
followers. She is not a regular poster so even those who do follow
her may not really follow her.
The
worse part is that this Horizon group never contacted her to see what
her complaint was or ask her to take it down.
Horizon's
response according to the Chicago Sun Times? "We're a sue first,
ask questions later kind of an organization," Jeffrey Michael,
whose family has ran Horizon for 25 years, said, noting that the
company manages 1,500 apartments in Chicago and has a good reputation
it wants to preserve.
Chances
are I would have never seen the Tweet. The majority of people never
would see the Tweet. After the statement from Horizon, I would never
want to do business with a company like that! Seriously, a tenant has
a complaint and they slap a $50,000 lawsuit on her.
What is
next? Are we going to be sued for what we say in casual conversation
to our friends? Because ultimately that is what Bonnen was doing. The
difference is that Horizon was patrolling Twitter to see what was
said about their company with a team of lawyers just waiting to
pounce.
This
instance tells me that Horizon is too worried about their image to
even consider what she said or have a grown-up conversation about it.
Of course, I do not want to be slapped with a lawsuit either.
I think
Horizon has done a good job on their own with this frivolous lawsuit
to validate a perception about their company. The complaint after all
was they did not care about people.
To read
the article, visit online at
http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/1687436,CST-NWS-twitter28web.article
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