Twitter Libel Suit Dismissed "With Prejudice"

By Tom Collins

A while back (I know, I've been neglecting this blog horribly, consumed with our move to CO and our exciting work on the BlogPaws 2010 pet bloggers conference), I wrote yet another post, More on Lawyers vs. Social Media, criticizing lawyers who seem clueless about the costs and consequences of attacking bloggers with traditional litigators' tools. In that post, I described how the lawyers managed to publicize an allegedly libelous tweet (from a Twitter account with ~20 followers) and expose it to millions of people. 

Today, Wendy Davis reported on MediaPost's Daily Online Examiner that Judge Diane Larsen threw the suit out, ruling that the tweet was "nonactionable as a matter of law."

Here's a copy of the judge's hand-written order (you can reveiw the entire Horizon Group v. Amanda Bonnen case on the Citizen Media Law Project site):

Personally, I think the judge gave the merits of the case all the consideration deserved.

But I wonder how much it has cost Horizon in attorneys fees, so far. And whether a motion from Bonnen will follow seeking to force Horizon to pay her expenses, too, on the ground that the lawsuit was "frivolous."

Stay tuned!