Legal Commentary

Twitter Libel Suit Dismissed

By Eugene Volokh

This is the suit I blogged about here; law.com reports:

[A] Cook Country, Ill., circuit judge dismissed a defamation suit filed by a Chicago-area real estate management company against a former tenant who tweeted about mold in her apartment....

Attorneys at The John Marshall Law School?s Center for Information Technology and Privacy Law represented 25-year-old defendant Amanda Bonnen against the lawsuit filed by Horizon Group Management....

Judge Diane J. Larsen issued no written opinion but indicated in court that the complaint against Bonnen was too vague, Reis said....

Other high-profile Twitter defamation cases are pending. For example, a clothing designer sued rock star Courtney Love in Los Angeles County, Calif., Superior Court in March alleging defamation, invasion of privacy and infliction of emotional distress because of a serious of unflattering tweets that Love wrote about her. A judge declined to throw out the suit in October.

Reality television star Kim Kardashian was sued in December by a Miami doctor who markets a cookie weight loss diet. Kardashian wrote two tweets denying that she was on ?Dr. [Sanford] Siegal?s Cookie Diet? and referring to the program as ?unhealthy.? The case is pending....

Thanks to Josh Blackman for the pointer.

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on January 26, 2010 (boomark / email).