Before we get into exactly what caused their colossal misstep or how their response has been perceived throughout the Internet, let’s all take a second to realize that we’re all human, and humans naturally have a tendency to react first and think later. If you’re going to be successful in business, you’re going to need to be able to think first, then take calm and rational action. Horizon Realty Group clearly wasn’t able to do that.

So what’s all the drama about? The short story is that Horizon Realty Group, a property management company,has filed a $50,000 libel lawsuit against a former tenant, Amanda Bonnen, over one of her alleged Twitter posts. The lawsuit claims that Bonnen libeled the company via Twitter on May 12th, stating “Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon Realty thinks it’s okay.”

Now, I’m no lawyer, but I don’t think that this is going to gain any traction. It has, however, created a tremendous amount of bad PR for Horizon Realty Group. Ironically, at the time of the tweet, Amanda Bonnen had a staggering 24 followers, so whether the statement was true or not, virtually no one would have even seen it. Instead of choosing their battles wisely, they chose to come after someone who would have had no impact on their company, and now everyone on Twitter is talking about it. They have created their own problem which is growing by the day.

This is a great lesson for everyone in business. When someone says something nasty, or even false, take some time to cool down before you fire off a response. And sometimes, it’s best just to avoid the battle in the first place, especially if you have nothing to gain by fighting it.