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Real-World Consequences of Social Networking Posts
gbulmash sends in a classic Streisand Effect story of a Chicago landlord suing a tenant over a tweet complaining of mold in her apartment. The landlord claims that the tweet caused $50,000 damage to their reputation. If it didn't, then the fallout from their own ill-advised lawsuit surely will. The woman's Twitter account is now gone (possibly on advice of counsel), but the tweet that started it all lives on. And in a similar vein, reader levicivita notes a firing over a political comment on a Facebook page. "Lee Landor, who had been the deputy press secretary to Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer since May, posted comments on her Facebook page criticizing Mr. Gates [Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr.] and the president, whom she referred to at one point as 'O-dumb-a.' ... The borough president has accepted Ms. Landor's resignation, effective immediately."
Only possible legit suit you could have is one for libel. Ok well libel requires three things:
1) That the respondent made a false statement. Truth is the ultimate defense against libel. If there was, in fact, mold in the apartment then the landlord is done right here. Doesn't matter how damaging the statement was, if it is true there is fuck all you can do.
2) That the respondent knew the statement was false. If you make a false statement, but can show you believed it to be true, that can get you off the hook for libel.
3) That the statement was made with the intent of causing harm. If you make a false statement as a joke, that's not libel, you have to intend to cause harm.
That's what it requires, has to be something false, you had to know it was false, and you had to say it anyway hoping to harm your target. If it was true, well tough shit.
Too bad there are no consequences for posting a story like this and linking to an opinion piece on some site nobody's ever heard of, when you could as easily link a real newspaper in the city it happened in, like the Chicago Tribune. Landlord sues Uptown tenant for Twitter post.
BAD submission. Bad bad bad. No cookie for you!
Free Martian Whores!
Legally, however, in the United States most states are "at will" employment, which basically means you have no rights whatsoever -- you can be fired for almost any reason, or none at all, without any recourse.
Not so. At will employment means you can be fired (or quit) without notice. It also means you can be fired without a reason. It most emphatically does not mean you can be fired for any reason, though -- for example, you can't fire someone because of race, sex, etc. even in an at-will state.
IF the mold wasn't known, I doubt anyone state could enforce penalties.
Generally, when you buy a house, you request a full and complete disclosure from the seller. This is where you list everything you know that could be considered wrong and effect any aspect of the sale. If you can prove they knew about it and failed to disclose it, then you can pretty much recoup damages because of their failure to disclose. However, some people don't know there is mold and therefore can't be held to it. This is where a competent inspector is a good idea.
And when checking out your inspector, find out what kind of insurance and so on they have. Often if the inspector misses something, they can be made to pay (their insurance) for their lack of thoroughness. This isn't screwing the inspector or being lawsuit happy as it may sound either. You paid them to disclose anything and everything about the house and used their professional findings as a basis for your decision for a major purchase.