Those 140-character "microblog" posts to Twitter don't constitute much more than links, dinner recipes, and bitching, right? Be careful with the bitching, though—a property management company in Chicago has filed a lawsuit against a tenant who tweeted an off-the-cuff comment about the company. The company, Horizon Group Management, says that the Twitter user in question sent the message maliciously, and is now asking for $50,000 in damages.

It all started when Twitter user @abonnen (Amanda Bonnen, who has since deleted her Twitter account) said to a friend on May 12, "You should just come anyway. Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it's okay." At the time of the tweet, Bonnen's profile was public (meaning that everyone could read her Twitter stream) and she had about 20 followers.

Horizon must have been monitoring its mentions on Twitter—as many companies do these days—because someone there saw the tweet and immediately got moving with legal action. In its complaint, Horizon says that the tweet was "wholly false" and that the company has been "greatly injured in its reputation as a landlord in Chicago." It is suing Bonnen on the grounds that her tweet was defamatory, she damaged the company's reputation and business, and that she should be liable for the damages.

There are several reasons why this lawsuit is breaking new ground, not the least of which is its Twitter origin. There is much debate as to whether people's Twitter streams are more like blogs—which are increasingly being held to the same legal standards as regular media when it comes to defamation—or a giant chat room, where most people presume "anything goes." It may actually be somewhere in between, but the one problem with trying to hold tweets to a higher journalistic standard is the hard character limitation—it's difficult to back up your comments within 140 characters (or even within several 140-character tweets), plus links to sources or pictures of evidence.

As it turns out, Horizon made no effort to sort out this issue with Bonnen before filing the lawsuit. Horizon owner Jeffrey Michael told the Chicago Sun-Times that the company had never spoken to Bonnen about the tweet and never asked her to take it down. "We're a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization," he said.

The company has now managed to position itself as one that a lot renters and prospective homeowners wouldn't want to do business with, unlike those that monitor their reputations on Twitter to address customer service issues. Zipcar, Boingo, one of my local pizza places, and even Allstate and Comcast have all swooped in to help out Ars staffers in need after we have aired some complaints. Even if Bonnen really had no mold and Horizon was technically innocent, the bad PR from this move will surely do more damage than Bonnen's message to 20 of her best Twitter friends.

Update: Horizon Realty has issued a press release (PDF) that claims the previous comments issued by Jeffrey Michael were "tongue in cheek." The company says that there was a roof leak in March of 2009 and that Bonnen moved out of her apartment in June of 2009 despite there being no mold in her apartment. She then sued the company and Horizon discovered her tweet as part of their "due diligence" regarding the lawsuit. That apparently brings us to where we are today and Horizon's lawsuit against Bonnen.

Further reading:

Listing image by Moldy fruit by Flickr user Crystalline Radical