A first-of-its-kind defamation lawsuit over a Chicago apartment renter's 16-word Twitter post appears to be the poisonous fruit of a tenant-friendly housing ordinance that landlords say punishes them unfairly for petty violations.

Horizon Realty Group, which manages 15 buildings in Chicago, reacted to the run-of-the-mill tenant gripe of Amanda Bonnen by suing her last week for libel damages of at least $50,000. Bonnen wrote in a now-infamous May 12 Twitter post:

Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it's okay.

It is believed to be the first libel suit involving a single tweet –- a case filed against rock singer Courtney Love in May alleged she defamed a fashion designer in 10 Twitter postings. Tweets cannot exceed 140 characters.

According to Horizon, no mold was ever found in Bonnen's apartment in the Buena Terrace building and she moved out “on her own volition” on June 30. “The statements in the Tweet concerning Plaintiff were and are wholly false,” Horizon says in its complaint. “By reason of the publication of them, Plaintiff has been greatly injured in its reputation as a landlord in Chicago.”

The nationwide publicity over the suit has turned Horizon into a symbol of landlord villainy. Bonnen's Twitter page only had 22 followers, making it implausible to say the least that Horizon could have suffered a great injury.

“[T]his company is digging themselves into the worst PR nightmare on earth!” one Chicago Tribune reader exclaimed.

But Bonnen actually struck the first blow in the legal battle, filing a housing law class action against Horizon on June 24 that takes advantage of the tenant-friendly provisions of the Chicago Residential and Landlord Tenant Ordinance (CRLTO).

The complaint alleges two claims –- that Horizon violated the ordinance by failing to pay interest on Bonnen's $250 security deposit and by failing to include “mandatory porch safety language” in her rental agreement. The porch safety provision was added to the law after a porch attached to the rear of a Chicago apartment building collapsed in 2003, killing 13 people.

“The city wanted to spread the word to tenants: Don't overload your porch,” explains Chicago renters' attorney Mark Silverman, an expert on the CRLTO.

A violation of the porch safety provision carries an automatic $100 fine and Bonnen is also eligible for statutory damages of twice the value of her security deposit plus interest. Since Horizon has more than 1,500 tenants, it could be facing a class action liability of more than $500,000.

In a statement, Horizon spokesman Jeffrey Michael said Bonnen's suit “is completely baseless and  was waged merely as a pretext to address an underlying disagreement” over water damage to her apartment. “This is a classic example of tenants trying to manipulate the controversial RLTO for their benefit,” he added.

Renters' attorneys in Chicago have become expert in scouring leases for violations, however inconsequential they may seem. But Silverman insists Bonnen didn't do anything manipulative in filing a CRLTO suit rather than pursuing what would have been a far more complicated mold case against Horizon.

“It makes a lot more sense to sue them for strict liability [CRLTO] violations that come with automatic penalties,” he tells On Point.

In a major victory for tenants, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled in Lawrence v. Regent Realty Group, 754 N.E.2d 334 (2001), that a landlord's violation of the CRLTO need not be willful for a tenant to recover damages. A dissenting justice said he did not believe that “the Chicago city council intended to punish landlords for inadvertent mistakes and violations of the Ordinance.”

Horizon's libel suit against Bonnen, meanwhile, looks more pretextual than substantive. “I think they're trying to use [it] to scare her out of her case,” Silverman says.

But the publicity storm has probably cost Horizon any leverage it might have had. Michael didn't do his cause any good by telling a Chicago Sun-Times reporter, "We're a 'sue first, ask questions later' kind of an organization."

Horizon could also face an award of attorney fees under Illinois' anti-SLAPP law for filing a suit in retaliation for Bonnen's exercise of her free-speech rights.

By Matthew Heller
7/30/09