Courtney Love cleared in Twitter libel trial

Courtney Love can put her legal troubles to rest now that she has been cleared of the libel charges filed against her by her former lawyer.

Rolling Stone reports that Love got the good news after a Los Angeles County Superior Court jury returned their verdict on Friday. The trial was a landmark case being the first over libelous tweets.

It all started when Love's former attorney, Rhonda Holmes, brought the lawsuit against her back in May 2011. Holmes claimed that Love had committed libel in a 2010 post on Twitter implying that Holmes had taken a bribe. In the tweet, Love alleged that Holmes declined to represent the singer in litigation against the estate of her late husband, Kurt Cobain, because Holmes had been "bought off."

In her own defense, Love testified that she had intended that tweet as a private direct message in response to a question. The Hole frontwoman says that when she realized she had accidentally tweeted the comment publicly, she immediately deleted it.

The jury deliberated for four hours and unanimously found that Love had indeed published the tweet in question, and that it contained false information. Eleven of the 12 jurors believed that the tweet would have been damaging to its target's reputation.

The jury ruled in Love's favor saying that Holmes' lawyers had failed to prove that Love knew at the time that the statement was false, and so could not be held liable for defamation.

The jury declined to award Holmes the $8 million in damages she was seeking from Love.