think this is an appeal that i arose from a trial that was conducted in one over of twenty ten based on two claims that arose out of a defamation per se claim and also an intentional interference with with some of his coworkers on a friday evening and they eventually they'd gone out to a few bars and eventually ended up back at his apartments and it was mr harrison  boyfriend that they owned it up back at his apartment and they spent some time there and after that everybody went home there was a friday night the sunday following  basically used the opposite of the correct standard for his stance the judge found that to cause mr harrison's germination which is one of the elements of an intentional reference with one plan on and the judge said in this that the record of eight or nine that there could have been a number of different ways that mr harris could have heard that mr harrison could have been separated from the rest of the employees there saying that well maybe mr harrison or his intent was that mr harrison might not necessarily have  investigation that was performed as a result of mr maddox's making the false claims on mr x as i mentioned before also made the claim during the investigation that mr harrison was having a consensual relationship but the ultimate result of the investigation and this was admitted by the investigator was that is that the  to have mr harrison fired now you don't have to prove prove by direct admission that he is actual intent was to have mr harrison fired according to a general principle of torah law i mean you're going to obviously have the specific desire to cause the consequences that your actions denote but also are you can you know or at least you should have the substantially certain belief that the consequences will result in the situation mr maddux made the claim that mr harrison raped his daughter he made the claim that every word out first arrest and he also claimed that he was having an improper relationship with and with another employee that turned out to be consensual and that there was also the investigation showed there was basically no issue there and i think the reasonable inference or a reasonable inference or view of th facts is that he did indeed i'm at least have a substantially certain belief or knowledge that making that kind of claim would result in the consequences of mr harrison being fired  on further conversation case you have to show that you have a reasonable expectation of continued employment that was in dispute the proof of that trial on mr maddox admitted that during his testimony he also admitted that you have the knowledge that that harrison was a generally a good manager and that there was no reason that he thought that mr harrison would ever need to be removed from his position as far as the interference with when he called them regarding the rape allegations and the warrant allegations dear specifically limited their investigation to the third thing that mr maddox  the investigation and then at once it was discovered by mr harrison's investigation that there was no warrant out for us for his arrest and after further testimony during the investigation by  birch who mr harrison was having a relationship with that there was no improper relationship going on that it was consensual on the following tuesday i believe when mr maddox was review he was obviously the star of the investigation and his comments over the course of the investigation also i think establish a reasonable question of fact that his conduct was  and that is i'm assuming that a qualified privilege of applies to statements made by a defend them in the context of an intentional interference claim the there is case law that says that  if a privilege applies that the defendant's actions must have been without justification now the the defendant mr maddox admitted on cross examination that accusing somebody of sexual assault is a series of very serious allegations made he also admitted that he had no personal knowledge and had not conducted an investigation whatsoever into whether the rape had in fact happened or whether  that it it's a reasonable interpretation of then that he acknowledged that he had some down as to whether the factual circumstances surrounding his allegations were actually true  and specifically he admitted to the investigator and this is investigators testimony that mr maddox stated something to the effect of this didn't turn out to be what it looks like that he would appreciate understanding with respect to  then talking about the issue that i'd like to focus on is whether there or not there was a proper occasion for making the statements  is is that these statements had absolutely nothing to do with the workplace and all of the cases for example cited by the defend that's on our all are all regarding issues that he was accused by one of his own claims of being in violation of the drug policy or possessing drugs and he was there after five the court understandably found that there was a call by privilege there because i think that there is a reasonable interest that the defendant should be able to make statements like that in this case the statements regarded activities that incurred entirely outside of the employment cont and he also could have could have conversed with the other people who had been out with them that night for instance the alleged victim mr mallock his daughter had a boyfriend at the time who was also with down at the apartment the entire time and he presuming that he knew him he could very easily have contacted him to confirm what was going  mr davidson he the global security officer that markedly that is a part of the investigation is not making the findings but as part of the best occasion that you see from the other case there's a bunch of other people to clean h r there involved  is unbelievably limited he doesn't even get into different cern's that his daughter raised with oh the employer asking about he simply is concerned what would happen in the workplace if he runs into this manager from what information he learned from his daughter has pointed out be the investigation any discipline had nothing to do with the information that another employee semantics provided there's no he had his limited scope of reporting a concern of what would be workplace violence based on what you learned from his daughter what would happen if and then responding to the for the room freeze for me doesn't relations representative interest to make the communication privilege there's not this kind of looking at the law and the facts by the by the hellebores the queue of decision said hey we're just going to look at at more of the law and general subsided and whether that qualified privilege applies for them as for the court aside so it's proper for them to do that prior to the prior to the actual jury trial that we had the question of abuse is a is a fact question whether it happened where or when it happened of course you want to prevent a workplace violence if you don't walk into work where you could get half a potential workplace violence situation he does the right thing makes the call before in recognition of this could hands in the mail that's an obvious concern from mannix sees him on a regular basis that's an obvious concern so there is a certainly age and text of the employment relationship  that's exactly what would happen in this case there's a social policy for preventing the harassment you don't want the rescue to occur and that's what we have here is made by concerned employee limited scope and purpose question for sure doesn't the record show that the employers investigate him when they spoke to plaintive he admitted he had another relationship with a young lady so these yes that he had received text messages from her on his work phone yes and that was in violation of electronic policies i'm hearing company correct and when he was terminated and september third by mr arring tell him he was being terminated because a violation of electronic used how the scene that he created financial risk to the company and created a risk please correct so was the sexual assault even given as a reason for termination it was evidence that the in the investigation or the determination was it was based on the comments made when mr black asked mr mack for more information well this is what that there was that weird there's a concern out of his first order when up with a court hearing the more reasonable interpretation is you want to fire his zero evidence of that it's just as a court identified the other case it's all speculation but there's absolutely no evidence of that that he kept repeating false claims all he did was respond was provided information mr black and then answered questions from the from the rebuttal regarding the initial communication between mr maddox and the initial person i called he he did indeed the first thing out of his mouth was what would happen if i went  questions doesn't mean he couldn't control what he was saying and that he couldn't have first at least done a even a modicum of investigation into what he was alleging her as far as the  standard whether or not the qualified privilege would have applied the judge it made back made that ruling as a matter of law found that it was a matter of was of the qualified privilege applied in this fist all that says alligator make serious allegations are basically alleging that he committed the most heinous crime can think of that you would expect that something like that would happen with something like what the theory is that but for this allegation the company would have found out about the other misconduct or where was it who gave the result of the fire all there was are also investigate possible sexual harassment and possible violence in the workplace and that's what they based determination mr dignan also indicated on examination that he did not find any evidence of any sexual harassment or possibility of violence because he found that the relationship with mr gilbert for example was consensual indicates that the causal connection is the comments made by mr maddox the defendant so