Legal News

?Sue First, Ask Questions Later?? Not So Fast, Says Twitter-Suit Plaintiff

By Ashby Jones

We’ve got a little following up to take care of in regard to the Twitter post we did earlier today. (Click here to find it, or just scroll down a bit.)

An astute (and, it seems, excited) reader named Dave! pointed out that in a Chicago Sun-Times article, Jeffrey Michael, whose family runs Horizon, the real-estate management company that filed suit against tweeter Amanda Bonnen, said in response to a question about the suit: “We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization.” It’s truly one of the greatest law-and-business quotes we’ve ever had the pleasure of reading.

But now comes Michael, who, with the help of a public-relations agency, has modified his official statement, and referred to an underlying lawsuit. He writes:

The response to our libel lawsuit has been tremendous. We would like to take this opportunity to clarify some confusion concerning the circumstances surrounding our lawsuit against Amanda Bonnen.

I would first like to take this opportunity to apologize for tongue and cheek comments that were made previously regarding our approach to litigation. This statement is not in line with our philosophy towards property management and was taken out of context.

I need to set the record straight on a number of issues.

The facts that gave rise to this Twitter lawsuit were discovered in the course of due diligence relating to a class-action lawsuit first filed by Ms. Bonnen relating to alleged Chicago Residential Landlord Tenant Ordinance (RLTO) violations. It is our position that this lawsuit is completely baseless and was waged merely as a pretext to address an underlying disagreement that Ms. Bonnen had with regards to her apartment . . . .

As you can imagine, allegations of mold are taken very seriously by our organization. . . .

We look forward to presenting our side of this matter before the court and putting the unfounded accusations of a single, former tenant behind us so we can focus on continuing to serve our more than 1,500 existing tenants throughout the Chicagoland area."

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on July 28, 2009 (boomark / email).