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Courtney Love Sued Yet Again For Twitter-Based Defamation

from the step-away-from-the-keyboad dept

Tue, May 31st 2011 3:36am — Mike Masnick

A couple years ago, singer Courtney Love made a lot of news for being one of the first people sued for defamation for comments made via Twitter. While Love's lawyers had toyed with a "Twitter-made-me-do-it" defense, she eventually paid a rather stunning $430,000 settlement. I would guess that large settlement number has something to do with someone else deciding that some nasty comments from Love on Twitter rose to the level of defamation. Apparently Love's former attorney Rhonda Holmes is now suing her for defamation via Twitter due to Love's tweet:

I was fucking devastated (sic) when Rhonda J Holmes Esq of San Diego was bought off [...]"

The backstory, apparently, is that Holmes had asked Love to avoid "any and all substance abuse" while Holmes was representing Love. Love then stopped using them, then later sought to have Holmes represent her again, but Holmes' firm declined. Sometime after that, the above tweet was posted. While the claim may be false and defamatory, the whole thing seems pretty silly. First of all, it assumes that anyone took Love's comment seriously. I think anyone who knows of Love wouldn't put too much credibility into such a claim. Holmes claims that this has caused damage to her legal career, but that seems like a stretch. And, frankly, which seems likely to do more damage to your legal career: a passing tweet from someone with little credibility... or a lawyer suing a former client over said tweet? Lawyers suing former clients tends not to be a good advertisement for the law firms in question.

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Filed Under: courtney love, defamation
Companies: twitter

13 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2011 @ 4:17am

Courtney Love enjoys nothing more than saying stupid shit that gets her attention. Apparently this ancient ploy is still working great with some people. Some. people.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2011 @ 4:29am

Is suing Love a positive career move? Seems like this could be a case of self-defamation on the lawyer's part.
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The eejit (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 5:15am

Re:
No, it's self-Love on defamation's part.
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Di Fiasco, 31 May 2011 @ 5:17am

Ah, good 'ole Courtney. Just when you think she's gone forever, her insatiable trailer-trash behaviour gets her back into the headlines. As for the lawyer, I agree that it's a bit silly to take Love seriously. She'd (Love) be more credible as Showcase-Showdown competition for Britney Spears on 'The Price is Right,' - that is, provided they were fighting over a camper van with matching jetskis.
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PrometheeFeu (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 6:06am

I think in this case it may be logical to sue. Think of it as a signaling device: Suing is expensive. But it is a whole lot more expensive for those who don't have a valid case. So Holmes can point at the lawsuit and say: "Look, if she was right, this lawsuit would mean pouring truckloads of money down the drain. No sane person would do that. So you can trust me on this. She was lying."
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NullOp, 31 May 2011 @ 6:07am

Defamation
Even the first amendment doesn't grant you the right to say *anything* you want. Got that Ms. Love?
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Karl, 31 May 2011 @ 6:53am

How bored does one really have to be?
I guess what amazes me is that anyone actually reads Courtney Love's tweets.
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Chuck Norris' Enemy (deceased) (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 7:17am

Re: Defamation
You don't need a government document to give you the right to say anything you want. Now the right to not be subject to the consequences of said speech...that is another thing.
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The eejit (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 7:28am

Re: Defamation
No. IT gives you the right to say whatever the hell you want. It does not, however, absolve you of any criminality and being punished for saying stupid shit (like casually saying you're going to blow up the Hollywood sign).
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rstr5105 (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 8:25am

Lawyers Suing Clients.....
You know, there's an old Chinese proverb about that. Goes something like....

"Nuke the Whales....You've gotta nuke someone..."

No seriously, that's the only point of this article that stands out to me, (Promise mike, I'm not trolling here). This is going to be nothing but bad PR for Holmes, and I've the feeling that she's going to have a hard time being taken seriously in the legal community after this. Which means one less "Dirty" lawyer for the rest of us to worry about. We'll see.
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rstr5105 (profile), 31 May 2011 @ 8:26am

Re: Lawyers Suing Clients.....
Or perhaps....Love still owes her money......?
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Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2011 @ 9:17am

It would be interesting for the time it took to read the tweet, other than that it would be a "who cares" moment, because 5 minutes after, and having read another tweet, I would have forgotten Holmes name anyway.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 May 2011 @ 10:43am

Re: Re: Defamation
That's certainly an odd concept of "rights" (i.e., you have the "right" to do something but can be criminally punished for it).
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