Jury Sides With Courtney Love In Trial Over Tweet
A jury on Friday rejected a defamation case against Courtney Love over a
Twitter post that suggested one of her attorneys had been “bought off”
for not pursuing a lawsuit over her late husband’s estate.
The
verdict came after roughly three hours of deliberation in a case that
spanned eight days and focused on the Hole frontwoman’s postings on the
social networking site. The case centered on one 2010 post that
suggested that San Diego attorney Rhonda Holmes had been “bought off”
and that was why she wasn’t representing the singer anymore. Love had
hired Holmes to file a fraud case against the estate of her late
husband, Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. The lawyer contended during the
trial that she was fired by Love and that the tweet and other statements
the singer made against her have caused her substantial damage.
Love’s
tweet stated, “I was (expletive) devastated when Rhonda J Holmes Esq of
san diego was bought off” in response to a question from user of the
popular social media site. The message was never meant to be public,
Love told jurors. She said she meant for it to be sent as a direct
message, which only the recipient would see, but it instead went public
and was quickly deleted. The swift verdict wasn’t witnessed by Love, who
had left court after closing arguments ended Friday morning. She
arrived just as the courthouse was closing down and met her attorneys,
John Lawrence and Matthew Bures, in the hallway where she hugged them
both. Love praised her attorneys and the jury after the verdict. Asked
about her social media presence, Love said she refrained from posting on
Twitter during the trial. “I didn’t tweet out of respect for the case,”
she said.
