Trial in Rand McNally’s lawsuit against One20 set for 2019

January 24, 2018

Mark Schremmer

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A weeklong jury trial has been scheduled for 2019 in Rand McNally’s defamation lawsuit against One20, a Minneapolis-based company that sells GPS navigation and electronic logging devices for heavy-duty trucks.

According to a recent filing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, the case should be ready for trial by Nov. 1, 2019, and is expected to take about a week.

Skokie, Ill.-based Rand McNally filed a lawsuit in February 2017 that accused One20 of orchestrating “fake” Twitter accounts to make customers believe the longtime company was going bankrupt. The two companies are competitors in the heavy-duty trucking market as they both provide GPS navigation and ELDs. The lawsuit also specifically names One20 President and CEO Christian Schenk.

One20 began an advertising campaign for its “Trade-Up Program” in January 2017. Under this program, a truck driver who bought one of One20’s tablets and turned in his old Rand McNally device would receive a $100 Visa gift card.

Some of the advertisements posted on the One20 website included a photo of a Rand McNally device with the header “Is your nav provider going bankrupt? Don’t get stuck without a warranty!”

Rand McNally also accused One20 of orchestrating “fake” Twitter accounts as part of the campaign. Rand McNally referenced the Twitter accounts @robslands and @richjohnson29. Both accounts claim to be controlled by people involved in the trucking industry, and both posted comments about Rand McNally.

“Fellow #Truckers: Return those @randmcnally tablets before it’s too late. Bankruptcy is now so close!” the @robslands account posted on Jan. 17, 2017. As of Jan. 24, 2018, the tweet was still visible.

In the lawsuit, Rand McNally noted that both of those Twitter accounts weren’t controlled by the people whose names were associated with the account.

One20 argued that the statements highlighted in Rand McNally’s complaint didn’t meet the requirements of defamation per se. Specifically, One20 cited a pair of cases that ruled “a false accusation of bankruptcy is not so obviously and materially harmful to a plaintiff that (its) injury may be presumed.”