Until October 2004, plaintiff Joyce Gardner was employed as the program director for the Shasta County Victim/Witness Assistance Program, a division of the office of the Shasta County District Attorney. Gardner claimed that she left after a disagreement over how the victim/witness assistance branch should be run. Gardner claimed that she planned on establishing herself as a private counselor, but that her three former colleagues and her successor began to tell people she was guilty of unlawful and unethical conduct, including theft of funds, and was under investigation. Gardner sued Elizabeth Leslie, who started with the District Attorney’s Office in April of 2004 and was Gardner’s immediate supervisor; Gerald Benito, who was the District Attorney and Leslie’s supervisor; Carol Gall, who worked in the Victim/Witness Program unit and was Gardner’s subordinate; and Angela Fitzgerald, who was Gardner’s successor, taking her position after Gardner’s employment ended. Initially, Gardner sued the defendants in federal court for violations of her First Amendment rights under violations of 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming that she was constructively discharged and that her free speech rights were violated. However, the federal court found for the defendants on these claims, but the state law claims continued to trial. California’s Child Abuse Treatment Program provides a grant to the Victim/Witness Program for counseling services to victims of child abuse, which in turn awards a sub-grant to a local therapy provider. In early 2004, the CHAT grant was up for renewal, having been previously awarded to Family Services Agency for the previous three years. Three providers applied for the sub-grant: FSA, New Directions to Hope and Creekside Counseling Center. Gardner claimed that her role was to relay information on the applicants to her supervisor, Leslie, who would then decide which provider was to receive the sub-grant. In addition to applying to the Victim/Witness Program for the CHAT sub-grant, the counseling service providers could also bid directly to the state, and against the Shasta County District Attorney’s Office, for the main grant. Gardner claimed that after the decision was made to award the sub-grant to Creekside, Leslie indicated to her that she was going to notify FSA of the decision, but not notify New Directions. This would serve to deprive New Directions of the ability to apply directly to the state for the main grant. Despite Gardner’s protests regarding the dissimilar treatment of FSA and New Directions, Leslie allegedly instructed Gardner to not inform New Directions. Gardner alleged that as a result of her protests against Leslie’s actions in the bidding process and as an effort to restrict her from speaking out further, among other motivating factors, she was subjected to repeated intimidation, scorn, humiliation, embarrassment and false charges of mismanagement by the county, Benito, Leslie, Fitzgerald and Gall. Further, Gardner claimed that after the end of her employment with the county, the individuals interfered with her ability to seek employment elsewhere by communicating with prospective employers about Gardner’s alleged work related improprieties. The defendants contended that most of the statements were made not by them, but by others in the community, and that most of the statements were true. Defense counsel argued that any statements that the defendants may have made were protected from liability by California’s Common Interest Privilege found in Civil Code § 47., Gardner claimed she lost her ability to engage in private practice as a marriage and family therapist for approximately four weeks due to her employer/supervisor terminating their relationship with her due to the false allegations against her. She also claimed that even after she obtained new employment, some patients did not resume treatment with her. In addition, Gardner alleged that she was openly shunned by the therapy community and one therapist even reported her to the State License Board in an attempt to revoke her license. Thus, Gardner sought recovery of damages for the damage to her reputation and emotional distress as a result of the shame, embarrassment and humiliation she endured.