On March 1, 2011, between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m., the plaintiff, a dental assistant in her mid-30s, met Michael Hoffman, a San Francisco employment lawyer whom she had been communicating with after responding to a Craig’s List ad. The plaintiff originally responded to Hoffman’s Craig’s List ad in November 2010. She and Hoffman then exchanged text messages, emails, photographs and telephone calls for approximately four months. Subsequently, in the early morning hours of March 1, 2011, Hoffman sent the plaintiff three videos of him having sex with other women. The videos depicted sexual acts that the plaintiff claimed she was willing to engage in. Between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m., she drove from East Bay to Hoffman’s residence in San Francisco with the intention of having sex with him. The encounter in Hoffman’s apartment lasted 15 minutes. The plaintiff claimed that for a short while, they engaged in consensual sexual acts, but that when she told him to stop, he assaulted and battered her. The plaintiff sued Hoffman, alleging assault, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, sexual battery, gender violence, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and false imprisonment in violation of the Civil Code. The matter proceeded to a bench trial. The plaintiff claimed that when she asked Hoffman to stop, he held her against her will, grabbed her breasts hard, and choked her. She also claimed that Hoffman would not let her leave after she attempted to grab her purse and leave the apartment. The plaintiff further claimed that she was assaulted and battered, that Hoffman restrained her, and that Hoffman forced her to allow him to perform oral sex as a condition of letting her leave. Hoffman contended that the plaintiff consented to the actions that occurred between them., The plaintiff left the apartment with a half-torn top and hardly any clothes on from the waist down. She then went into a public hallway of the apartment building, rode the elevator down seven stories and allegedly ran to her car. The plaintiff claimed that she felt pressure and pain on the middle front area of her neck, and on the left and right sides. She alleged that as a result, it hurt to turn her head for a week. The plaintiff claimed that she suffered five days of physical pain from being choked and that she continues to suffer anxiety, humiliation and emotional distress. She subsequently underwent three initial sessions with a social worker at San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, in San Francisco, in 2011, and was prescribed Zoloft, which the took a few pills of and then stopped. The plaintiff did not seek further treatment with the social worker or seek additional treatment despite the social worker’s recommendation that she seek additional help. The plaintiff did not miss any work, and continues to work, but she claimed she has become an alcoholic as a result of the incident. However, she testified that her life has now improved, as she receives support from her family, attends church and does “positive things.” Defense counsel moved to bifurcate the trial as to punitive damages, and the motion was granted.