Phillips v. Young CA6

Opinion

Filed 9/11/26 Phillips v. Young CA6 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SIXTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

VALARIE PHILLIPS, H053018 (Santa Clara County Plaintiff and Appellant, Super. Ct. No. 24CV429513)

v. CHLOE YOUNG et al., Defendants and Respondents.

Plaintiff and appellant Valarie Phillips appeals from a judgment following an order sustaining a demurrer to her first amended complaint without leave to amend. The defendants and respondents—Chloe Young, Denise Buckner, Nuzhat Shaikh, and Yvette Carpenter (Defendants)—were all subordinates of Phillips who reported to her at Kaiser Santa Clara Hospital. She alleges that they defamed her and portrayed her in a false light. She also alleges that Carpenter falsely imprisoned her. We conclude that the trial court properly sustained the demurrer without leave to amend as to the defamation and false light causes of action, which comprised the vast majority of Phillips’s allegations, but that the court erred in sustaining the demurrer as to the false imprisonment cause of action, which was adequately pled. We therefore reverse the judgment and remand the case for further proceedings as to respondent Carpenter only. I. BACKGROUND Because this is an appeal of a demurrer, we take the facts from Phillips’s first amended complaint (FAC), “the allegations of which are deemed true for the limited purpose of determining whether plaintiff has stated” viable causes of action. (Stevenson v. Superior Court (1997) 16 Cal.4th 880, 885.) Phillips is a registered nurse and was the Coordination of Care Service Director at Kaiser Santa Clara Hospital (Kaiser) from June 2022 to November 2023. Her department included approximately 100 employees, five of whom reported directly to her. Phillips has brought suit against four subordinate employees, alleging that they defamed her in various ways and participated in efforts to injure her by inflicting emotional, financial, and physical harm.1 A. Chloe Young Young is an Assistant Nurse Manager and Case Manager at Kaiser. She was a subordinate of Phillips from June 2022 to November 2023. In October 2023, Phillips hired Young as the Interim Manager of Utilization Management. Phillips’s first two causes of action for defamation and gross negligence are asserted against Young.2 According to Phillips, Young sent an email on February 8, 2023 to staff stating that registered nurse care coordinators “[s]ave lives.” Phillips had previously explained to staff during a meeting that in their roles as case managers, they do not save lives and are not responsible for doing so. Young’s email presented her contradictory statement as “factual and informational,” which thereby harmed Phillips’s 1 Phillips makes a number of arguments on appeal that are not relevant to the allegations of the FAC, including arguments based on the California Code of Regulations and the United States Code. For example, she cites California Code of Regulations sections 1256-36 and 1256-39, which govern a discharge from employment for misconduct in connection with eligibility for unemployment compensation benefits. These sections have no bearing on the causes of action in the case. 2 The causes of action in the FAC are not numbered, and some of them combine multiple legal theories. We will adopt the numbering used by the trial court, which counted a total of seven causes of action.

2 professional reputation because it “created doubt” regarding Phillips’s “ability and knowledge of the role and responsibilities of a Case Manager/Registered Nurse Care Coordinator.” Earlier, on January 16, 2023, Young was asked to perform certain duties as an Assistant Manager, and to address an issue in which an email had been sent to incorrect recipients. Young refused and stated it was not a part of her job. Young’s “insubordination caused the front-line staff to hate, shun, and contrive [sic] that [Phillips] ‘did not care about their concerns.’ ” B. Denise Buckner Buckner is a Patient Care Coordinator Case Manager and worked under Phillips from June 2022 to November 2023. Buckner reported directly to Young. Phillips’s third cause of action alleges both defamation and false light against Buckner. In October 2022, Phillips made Young the Interim Resource Manager but then sent an email in January 2023 announcing that she had selected a different applicant for the final position. A couple of days later, Buckner “sent a [d]efamatory email across the Northern California Kaiser Region expressing her discontent with [Phillips’s] selection for [r]esource [m]anager.” A few days after that, during a meeting attended by a number of staff, Buckner again “made [d]efamatory remarks” expressing her discontent with the selection. Buckner stated “her platform was due to [Phillips’s] ‘obvious lack of ability to lead’ and incapacity and/or knowledge in hiring.” In another January 2023 meeting, Buckner continued to make “[l]ibelous statements regarding [Phillips’s] competency to carry out the goals and agenda of Kaiser Northern California [Hospital Model of Care] objectives.” In February 2023, Phillips received a cease-and-desist email from the nurse’s union asserting that she had had a disciplinary meeting with Buckner where she had read the “Princip[les] of Responsibility” to Buckner “like a child.” The email was sent 3 “throughout” Kaiser in Northern California, the nurse’s union, the department, “and the public,” and “painted [Phillips] in a [f]alse [l]ight.” C. Nuzhat Shaikh Like Buckner, Shaikh is a Patient Care Coordinator Case Manager who worked under Phillips from June 2022 to November 2023. Phillips’s fourth and fifth causes of action for “defamation and false light” and “defamation/negligence” are against Shaikh. On January 15, 2023, Shaikh sent an email to Phillips’s supervisor allegedly stating that while other nurse leaders were competent, Phillips was incompetent, and that this created “stress for the frontline team.” Shaikh also emailed several other members of the staff. Shaikh falsely represented to the supervisor that she had nobody to reach out to regarding an “assignment incident” that occurred that day. According to Phillips, this email “signaled to the COO Plaintiff Supervisor that [Phillips] did not possess the leadership skills or knowledge to address . . . department issues.” In another email, sent on January 20 to the department nursing leadership and other staff, Shaikh stated that having care coordinators document participation in multidisciplinary rounds did not seem appropriate. In a January 23 email regarding inappropriate documentation by the frontline staff, Phillips’s supervisor wrote that it was “ ‘great to see the team (Nuzhat) engaged with process . . . and giving ideas for improvement.’ ” Phillips alleges that Shaikh “skipped the organization escalation procedure in an effort to address issues and paint a picture that [Phillips] was incompetent.” In her cause of action for defamation/negligence against Shaikh, Phillips alleges that on January 30, 2023, Shaikh sent an email to Phillips’s supervisors at Kaiser and “Kaiser Regional” in which she claimed that she and other “frontline staff” were not aware of how to participate in the organization’s “preceptor program.” Phillips’s regional supervisor responded that the information had been given to Phillips to disseminate to staff, and the supervisor expressed disappointment that Phillips had not 4 done so. Phillips alleges that this showed that her competence and character were called into question. D. Yvette Carpenter Carpenter is employed by Kaiser as Administrative Assistant to the Coordination of Care Service Director. She reported to Phillips from June 2022 to November 2023. Phillips asserts her sixth and seventh causes of action for defamation and false imprisonment against Carpenter. In her defamation cause of action, Phillips alleges that Carpenter attempted to “cast a light of incompetence among the staff by altering the on-call escalation phone number” for the department. On January 21, 2023, the “weekend on-call person [had] sent an email throughout [the] Kaiser organization … [stating] that the phone line was not functioning properly.” Carpenter reported that at the request of “the Assistant Manager who was on call on Friday,” she had changed the number to Phillips’s number. According to Phillips, this caused all urgent calls over the weekend to be diverted to her and thereby gave her the appearance of “incompetence, unreliability and a lack of leadership.” In her false imprisonment cause of action, Phillips alleges that on or around February 15, 2023, she gave instructions for a staff member to turn in a cell phone to information technology (IT), but Carpenter became aggressive and Phillips had to retreat to her office and close the door. On February 25, 2023, Phillips was aware that an employee who had left the department had given her cell phone to Carpenter. When Phillips asked for the phone, Carpenter became aggressive, argumentative, and threatening, but ultimately handed it over. Someone from IT came to collect the phone the next day, and Phillips gave him the phone. But when he tried to leave, Carpenter blocked his exit and questioned why she was not allowed to control the phone. Phillips stood in the doorway and was also prevented from exiting by Carpenter.

5 In another incident in March 2023, Carpenter “inserted herself” between the door of Phillips’s office and the exit to the main corridor, thereby blocking an unnamed “Resource Manager” from leaving after a meeting with Phillips. Carpenter also blocked Phillips from moving forward to assist the resource manager. Carpenter then blocked the exit with a chair so she could interrogate the resource manager further. Carpenter removed the chair after “several minutes” of “forcing the Resource Manager to listen” to her. E. The Pleadings Phillips filed her original complaint in January 2024. Defendants demurred, and Phillips filed no opposition. The trial court sustained the demurrer with leave to amend. Phillips filed her FAC in May 2024. Defendants again demurred. Following a contested hearing on August 1, 2024, the trial court sustained the demurrer in its entirety without leave to amend.3 The trial court entered judgment against Phillips in November 2024. Phillips timely appealed.

3 After the trial court’s order sustaining the demurrer, Phillips filed a motion for reconsideration. We do not have any ruling on this motion in the appellate record. It is also unclear from Phillips’s opening brief whether she is actually appealing any ruling on the motion. It appears that she faults the trial court for “failing to accept evidence” and “proof,” but evidence and proof are not relevant to a demurrer, which concerns only the allegations of the operative pleading. (SKF Farms v. Superior Court (1984) 153 Cal.App.3d 902, 905 [“A demurrer tests the pleadings alone and not the evidence or other extrinsic matters.”].) Phillips also filed a motion to quash a subpoena after the order sustaining the demurrer. She argued that the subpoena was improperly served, it was a “fishing expedition,” it violated her privacy rights, and the court somehow lacked jurisdiction. The trial court denied the motion without prejudice because no copy of the subpoena had been included with the motion. The subpoena is also absent from the appellate record, and it provides no basis for reversal of the judgment, despite some arguments by Phillips in her opening brief.

6 II. DISCUSSION A. Governing Law and Standard of Review “In reviewing an order sustaining a demurrer, we examine the operative complaint de novo to determine whether it alleges facts sufficient to state a cause of action under any legal theory. [Citation.]” (T.H. v. Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. (2017) 4 Cal.5th 145, 162 (Novartis).) “ ‘We treat the demurrer as admitting all material facts properly pleaded, but not contentions, deductions or conclusions of fact or law. [Citation.]’ ” (Blank v. Kirwan (1985) 39 Cal.3d 311, 318.) “Although we review the complaint de novo, ‘ “[t]he plaintiff has the burden of showing that the facts pleaded are sufficient to establish every element of the cause of action and overcoming all of the legal grounds on which the trial court sustained the demurrer, and if the defendant negates any essential element, we will affirm the order sustaining the demurrer as to the cause of action. [Citation.] We will affirm if there is any ground on which the demurrer can properly be sustained, whether or not the trial court relied on proper grounds or the defendant asserted a proper ground in the trial court proceedings.” ’ [Citation.] It is the trial court’s ruling we review, not its reasoning or rationale. [Citations.]” (Kahan v. City of Richmond (2019) 35 Cal.App.5th 721, 730.) “Where the demurrer was sustained without leave to amend, we consider whether the plaintiff could cure the defect by an amendment. The plaintiff bears the burden of proving an amendment could cure the defect. [Citation.]” (Novartis, supra, at p. 162.) “Defamation is an invasion of the interest in reputation.” (Smith v. Maldonado (1999) 72 Cal.App.4th 637, 645 (Smith).) “The elements of a defamation claim are (1) a publication that is (2) false, (3) defamatory, (4) unprivileged, and (5) has a natural tendency to injure or causes special damage. [Citation.]” (Wong v. Jing (2010) 189 Cal.App.4th 1354, 1369 (Wong).) “Publication need not be to the ‘public’ at large; communication to a single individual is sufficient.” (Smith, supra, at p. 645.) “It is an essential element of defamation that the publication be of a false statement of fact rather 7 than opinion.” (Ringler Associates Inc. v. Maryland Casualty Co. (2000) 80 Cal.App.4th 1165, 1181.) “In all cases of alleged defamation . . . the truth of the offensive statements or communication is a complete defense against civil liability, regardless of bad faith or malicious purpose.” (Smith, supra, at p. 646.) “[D]efamation can be of two types, libel or slander.” (Barker v. Fox & Associates (2015) 240 Cal.App.4th 333, 348.) “Libel is a false and unprivileged publication by writing,” while “[s]lander is a false and unprivileged publication, orally uttered.” (Civ. Code, §§ 45, 46.) In California, “ ‘the words constituting an alleged libel must be specifically identified, if not pleaded verbatim, in the complaint.’ [Citations.]” (Glassdoor, Inc. v. Superior Court (2017) 9 Cal.App.5th 623, 635 (Glassdoor).) “ ‘False light is a species of invasion of privacy, based on publicity that places a plaintiff before the public in a false light that would be highly offensive to a reasonable person, and where the defendant knew or acted in reckless disregard as to the falsity of the publicized matter and the false light in which the plaintiff would be placed.’ [Citation.]” (Jackson v. Mayweather (2017) 10 Cal.App.5th 1240, 1264 (Jackson).) “ ‘A “false light” cause of action is in substance equivalent to a libel claim, and should meet the same requirements of the libel claim, including proof of malice [where malice is required for the libel claim].’ [Citation.]” (Medical Marijuana, Inc. v. ProjectCBD.com (2016) 6 Cal.App.5th 602, 616 (Medical Marijuana).) “Indeed, ‘[w]hen a false light claim is coupled with a defamation claim, the false light claim is essentially superfluous, and stands or falls on whether it meets the same requirements as the defamation cause of action.’ [Citation.]” (Jackson, supra, at p. 1264.) B. The Requirement to Meet and Confer As a preliminary matter, Phillips argues that the parties did not meet and confer prior to the second demurrer, and that this led to her being “unfairly disadvantaged.” Phillips is correct that Code of Civil Procedure section 430.41 requires a demurring party 8 to meet and confer with the other side before filing a demurrer, and to do so “in person, by telephone, or by video conference . . . for the purpose of determining whether an agreement can be reached that would resolve the objections to be raised in the demurrer.” (Id., § 430.41, subd. (a).) On the other hand, the statute expressly states that “[a] determination by the court that the meet and confer process was insufficient shall not be grounds to overrule or sustain a demurrer.” (Code Civ. Proc., § 430.41, subd. (a)(4); see also Dumas v. Los Angeles County Bd. of Supervisors (2020) 45 Cal.App.5th 348, 355.) Therefore, any alleged failure to meet and confer is not a basis for reversal here. Moreover, Defendants’ counsel filed a declaration below stating that he had met and conferred with Phillips by telephone prior to filing the demurrer. This is sufficient to comply with the statutory requirement. C. The Causes of Action Against Young 1. Defamation As noted above, Phillips alleges that Young sent an email on February 8, 2023 to the effect that registered nurse care coordinators “save lives.” Defendants argue that this is insufficient to state a claim for defamation because the statement is protected by the common interest privilege, it is a statement of opinion, and it is not pleaded with the requisite specificity. The trial court found a lack of specificity in the allegation because Phillips did not adequately quote Young’s email or include the email as an attached exhibit. We agree with this determination. Phillips does not sufficiently describe the contents of the February 8 email and quotes only two words: “save lives.” This is insufficient to allege defamatory language. (Glassdoor, supra, 9 Cal.App.5th at p. 635 [“ ‘the words constituting an alleged libel must be specifically identified, if not pleaded verbatim, in the complaint’ ”].) Although Phillips claims that the “email framed the statement as factual 9 and informational,” and that the email “harmed [her] professional reputation,” these are unsupported conclusions. We accept the factual allegations of an amended complaint as true, but we do not accept a plaintiff’s factual and legal conclusions. (Aubry v. Tri-City Hospital Dist. (1992) 2 Cal.4th 962, 967 [on review of a demurrer, a court does not “assume the truth of contentions, deductions or conclusions of law”].) Without the actual language of the email, as well as potentially relevant context, we do not have enough information to determine whether the email can support a defamation cause of action.4 Because of the lack of information, Phillips has not shown that Young’s email is even about her and that it could therefore be defamatory in nature. One of the basic elements of a defamation claim is that “the statement on which the claim is based must specifically refer to, or be ‘of and concerning,’ the plaintiff in some way.” (Blatty v. New York Times Co. (1986) 42 Cal.3d 1033, 1042.) Here, there is nothing on the face of the statement that nurse care coordinators “save lives” that refers to, or can be deemed to be, “of or concerning” Phillips. Moreover, the statement about saving lives is not provably true or false on its face, and so it is more accurately categorized as one of opinion rather than of fact. “Because [a defamatory] statement must contain a provable falsehood, courts distinguish between statements of fact and statements of opinion for purposes of defamation liability. Although statements of fact may be actionable as libel, statements of opinion are constitutionally protected. [Citation.]” (McGarry v. University of San Diego (2007) 154 Cal.App.4th 97, 112.) “To determine whether a statement is actionable fact or nonactionable opinion, courts use a totality of the circumstances test of whether the statement in question communicates or implies a provably false statement of fact.

4 The FAC also quotes an earlier, January 15, 2023 email that stated, in part: “However, we are in the people business. [We do save lives.]” But Phillips does not allege who wrote this January 15 email and does not assert this particular email as part of her defamation cause of action against Young.

10 [Citation.]” (Id. at p. 113.) “ ‘Under the totality of the circumstances test, “[f]irst, the language of the statement is examined. For words to be defamatory, they must be understood in a defamatory sense . . . . [¶] Next, the context in which the statement was made must be considered.” ’ [Citation.] Whether challenged statements convey the requisite factual imputation is ordinarily a question of law for the court. [Citations.]” (Issa v. Applegate (2019) 31 Cal.App.5th 689, 703 (Issa).) “The ‘pertinent question’ is whether a ‘reasonable fact finder’ could conclude that the statements ‘as a whole, or any of its parts, directly made or sufficiently implied a false assertion of defamatory fact that tended to injure’ plaintiff’s reputation. [Citation.]” (Ibid.) In this case, while Phillips takes issue with Young’s statement that nurse care coordinators “save lives,” the fact that she had previously expressed a contrary opinion during a meeting merely indicates two differences of opinion. The phrase “save lives” is not so specific and measurable that it can be proved one way or the other, especially in the context of a healthcare organization such as Kaiser, where certain employees—nurse care coordinators—may be providing indirect services to patients, and other employees— doctors and clinical nurses—may be engaged in delivering hands-on care to those patients. Nothing in Phillips’s arguments comes close to explaining how a reasonable fact finder could conclude that the “save lives” statement is a “ ‘false assertion of defamatory fact,’ ” rather than a broad, subjective opinion. (Issa, supra, 31 Cal.App.5th at p. 703.) Because we conclude that Phillips has alleged insufficient facts to support a cause of action for defamation, including alleging a difference of opinion rather than one of provably false facts, we do not need to address Defendants’ additional argument regarding the application of the common interest privilege (Civ. Code, § 47, subd. (c)) or Phillips’s counterargument that the privilege is qualified by allegations of malice in the FAC. Because of the lack of specificity and context regarding the bare “save lives” statement, we will refrain from evaluating it under the common interest privilege. The 11 privilege is discussed further below with respect to some of the other defamation allegations. In addition, as noted above, Phillips alleges that Young engaged in “insubordination” as part of the first cause of action, but Phillips’s briefs do not address this allegation, much less explain how it constitutes defamation when it does not involve any statement allegedly made by Young. We conclude that it does not provide any basis for maintaining a defamation cause of action. 2. Gross Negligence Phillips alleges in her second cause of action that “Young negligently and recklessly advised the Registered Nurse Care Coordinators in her email that they save lives as part of their role and responsibilities.” This is fundamentally the same as the allegation in the first cause of action. Courts have rejected attempts to frame libel claims as causes of action for negligence. (Felton v. Schaeffer (1991) 229 Cal.App.3d 229, 239.) We do the same. Phillips’s second cause of action does not add anything to her defamation allegations to show that she can maintain a separate cause of action for negligence. D. The Cause of Action Against Buckner 1. Defamation and False Light After Phillips selected someone other than Young for the position of Resource Manager, Buckner allegedly made defamatory statements regarding Phillips. The allegations in the FAC appear to refer to written statements that would be subject to the specificity requirement for libel: for example, the FAC alleges that Buckner “sent a Defamatory email . . . expressing her discontent with Plaintiff[’]s selection.” Phillips has not alleged the contents of this email with the requisite specificity. Nevertheless, the FAC also alleges that Buckner made statements during two “TEAMS huddle[s]” with other staff, which Phillips refers to ambiguously as “Defamatory remarks” and 12 “Defamatory Libelous statements.” These included that Phillips had an “ ‘obvious lack of ability to lead,’ ” a lack of knowledge in hiring, a lack of skill to perform her job, and a lack of good judgment. Even if we were to interpret these latter statements as having been expressed orally—and therefore as potentially slanderous rather than libelous—we would conclude that Phillips has not stated a cause of action against Buckner. “Slander is ‘a false and unprivileged publication, orally uttered, . . . which [inter alia] tends directly to injure [a person] in respect to his office, profession, trade or business, either by imputing to him general disqualification in those respects which the office or other occupation peculiarly requires, or by imputing something with reference to his office, profession, trade or business that has a natural tendency to lessen its profits [or] which, by natural consequence, causes actual damage.’ [Citation.] ‘The question whether a statement is defamatory can be reached on demurrer as a matter of law.’ [Citation.]” (Gould v. Maryland Sound Industries, Inc. (1995) 31 Cal.App.4th 1137, 1153.) “[S]lander can be charged by alleging the substance of the defamatory statement. [Citations.]” (Okun v. Superior Court (1981) 29 Cal.3d 442, 458.) As with Young, Defendants argue that Buckner’s statements constituted non- actionable opinion rather than provably false fact. But even if we were to conclude that the foregoing statements were potentially actionable, we would hold that they are protected under the common interest privilege. “Civil Code section 47, subdivision (c) codifies the common law privilege of common interest, ‘which protect[s] communications made in good faith on a subject in which the speaker and hearer shared an interest or duty.’ ” (Kashian v. Harriman (2002) 98 Cal.App.4th 892, 914.) The privilege applies to “a communication, without malice, to a person interested therein, (1) by one who is also interested, or (2) by one who stands in such a relation to the person interested as to afford a reasonable ground for supposing the motive for the communication to be innocent, or (3) who is requested by the person interested to give the information.” (Civ. Code, § 47, subd. (c).) Common interests can include family, 13 business, or organizational interests. (Brown v. Kelly Broadcasting Co. (1989) 48 Cal.3d 711, 727; see also King v. United Parcel Service, Inc. (2007) 152 Cal.App.4th 426, 440 [“Parties in a business or contractual relationship have the requisite ‘common interest’ for the privilege to apply.”].) “[The] common interest privilege is not well defined, but it has been determined to apply to statements by management and coworkers to other coworkers explaining why an employer disciplined an employee.” (McGrory v. Applied Signal Technology, Inc. (2013) 212 Cal.App.4th 1510, 1538.) The “defendant generally bears the initial burden of establishing that the statement in question was made on a privileged occasion, and thereafter the burden shifts to plaintiff to establish that the statement was made with malice. [Citation.]” (Taus v. Loftus (2007) 40 Cal.4th 683, 721.) “ ‘ “The malice necessary to defeat a qualified privilege is ‘actual malice’ which is established by a showing that the publication was motivated by hatred or ill will towards the plaintiff or by a showing that the defendant lacked reasonable ground for belief in the truth of the publication and therefore acted in reckless disregard of the plaintiff’s rights (citations).” ’ ” (Ibid.) Here, Phillips alleges that Buckner made her statements to other Kaiser employees, all of whom would have had an interest in employment issues at their shared workplace. Complaints about a supervisor, made among coworkers, reflect a shared interest. We see no material distinction between the application of the common interest privilege to statements by an employer regarding the discipline of an employee and statements made by one employee to others at the same business or organization regarding decisions made by a supervisor. Phillips argues that the trial court erred in applying the common interest privilege because it necessarily made a factual finding as to what was in the “best interest of the business.” This mischaracterizes the trial court’s order, as the trial court made no such finding. It also misconstrues the law, as there is no requirement that an application of the privilege requires a determination of what is in the best interest of a business (or family 14 or other common organization or endeavor). Civil Code section 47, subdivision (c) merely requires a “shared” interest or duty, not a claim to serving the “best” interest. Phillips also argues that because the FAC includes the allegation that Buckner acted with “reckless disregard” for whether her statements were false, it establishes malice, which can operate as an exception to the common interest privilege. This is not persuasive. The allegations that Buckner acted with reckless disregard or malice are factual and legal conclusions that we do not accept as true on demurrer. (B & P Development Corp. v. City of Saratoga (1986) 185 Cal.App.3d 949, 953 [“In evaluating a demurrer, . . . no . . . credit is given to pleaded contentions or legal conclusions.”].) Simply using the words “reckless disregard” and “malice” repeatedly in a pleading is not enough. The pleading must contain factual allegations to support these conclusions, and the FAC here does not do so. Finally, Phillips’s false light claim based on a February 2023 cease-and-desist email from the nurse’s union suffers from the same infirmities as the defamation claim: we do not have the cease-and-desist email, and no actual language is quoted from the email. Even the characterization that Phillips read the “Princip[les] of Responsibility” to Buckner “like a child” is a paraphrase rather than a quotation. Because a false light cause of action “ ‘should meet the same requirements of [a] libel claim’ ” (Medical Marijuana, supra, 6 Cal.App.5th at p. 616), the claim has not been pled with the requisite specificity. Moreover, the characterization that someone read a document to someone else “like a child” is a quintessential statement of opinion, not provably false in any way. For these reasons, Phillips cannot maintain her defamation/false light cause of action against Buckner.

15 E. The Causes of Action Against Shaikh 1. Defamation Phillips’s defamation claims against Shaikh are based on several emails involving Phillips’s supervisors in January 2023: (1) a January 15 email from Shaikh to Phillips’s supervisor regarding an “assignment incident” in which Shaikh “point[ed] out that other Registered Nurse leaders are competent, and [Phillips] is incompetent”;5 (2) a January 15 email from Shaikh to the “department leader” stating she would be late for work and that she had no person with which to address her concerns, which Phillips interpreted as “signal[ing] to the COO Plaintiff Supervisor that [Phillips] did not possess the leadership skills or knowledge to address the department issues”; and (3) a January 20 email from Shaikh to the department nursing leadership and other staff, stating that requiring care coordinators to document participation in multidisciplinary rounds did not seem appropriate.6 As previously discussed, to allege libel adequately, a plaintiff must specifically identify the words constituting the libel. (Glassdoor, supra, 9 Cal.App.5th at p. 635.) Phillips did not include the text from any of the foregoing emails, let alone the specific language constituting the alleged libel. We are left only with Phillips’s summary and interpretation of the emails and her conclusion that they were defamatory in nature. This is insufficient. As noted above, we cannot accept a plaintiff’s legal conclusion on a demurrer, but that is all we have. Further, to the extent that Shaikh apparently made comments regarding Phillips’s skills or competency in the course of her employment, such comments would be protected by the common interest privilege. The emails summarized above were sent to 5 Neither the FAC nor Phillips’s opening brief explains what an “assignment incident” entails. 6 Phillips also cites a January 23 email in the FAC, but that email was written by her supervisor, not Shaikh.

16 other Kaiser employees, including Phillips’s supervisor, and they addressed concerns regarding workplace issues. These are communications in which the participants shared a common interest, and so it was Phillips’s burden to allege that Shaikh acted with malice. In attempting to show malice, Phillips alleges that Shaikh had an “ulterior motive” in connection with her January 20 email protesting the documentation of multidisciplinary rounds, and that motive was to “cast doubt on Plaintiff[’s] capabilities.” Phillips further alleges that by emailing Phillips’s supervisor without first talking to Young (Shaikh’s supervisor), Shaikh demonstrated an intent to destroy Phillips’s reputation. These allegations are insufficient to show malice. When evaluating the common interest privilege, “malice is not inferred from the communication.” (Civ. Code, § 48.) Phillips alleges nothing more than the existence of the January 2023 emails and the factual conclusion that Shaikh had an “ulterior motive.” This does not state a claim for defamation. 2. Defamation/Negligence In her second defamation cause of action against Shaikh (the fifth cause of action), Phillips alleges that another January 2023 email—sent by Shaikh on January 30 to Phillips’s supervisors—was defamatory against Phillips because Shaikh claimed that she and other staff were not aware of how to participate in the organization’s “preceptor program.” As noted above, the regional supervisor allegedly expressed disappointment with Phillips for not distributing that information to her subordinates. Again, Phillips has not alleged the actual words of Shaikh’s email (or the supervisor’s response). She therefore has not sufficiently alleged a cause of action for defamation based on the January 30 email. (See Glassdoor, supra, 9 Cal.App.5th at p. 635.) Similarly, Phillips’s description of the email brings it squarely within the scope of the common interest privilege, and the FAC again does not adequately allege malice.

17 F. The Causes of Action Against Carpenter 1. Defamation As noted above, Phillips alleges that on Friday, January 21, 2023 Carpenter changed the department’s “on-call escalation phone number” for the person “on call” for the weekend. Carpenter later reported she had changed the number to that of Phillips, which Phillips now claims was defamation because it “cast[] the appearance of incompetence, unreliability and a lack of leadership by [Phillips] to [the] organization and the public it serves.” Carpenter correctly points out that one of the fundamental elements of a defamation cause of action is a false publication. (Wong, supra, 189 Cal.App.4th at p. 1369.) In her FAC, Phillips alleges no false statement, much less any publication of that statement, by Carpenter. She alleges only that Carpenter changed a phone number and then told others she had done so. This conduct does not constitute a basis for a defamation cause of action. 2. False Imprisonment The tort of false imprisonment “consists of the ‘ “nonconsensual, intentional confinement of a person, without lawful privilege, for an appreciable length of time, however short.” ’ [Citation.] That length of time can be as brief as 15 minutes. [Citation.] Restraint may be effectuated by means of physical force [citation], threat of force or of arrest [citation], confinement by physical barriers [citation], or by means of any other form of unreasonable duress. [Citation.]” (Fermino v. Fedco, Inc. (1994) 7 Cal.4th 701, 715 (Fermino).) “The only mental state required to be shown to prove false imprisonment is the intent to confine, or to create a similar intrusion. [Citations.] Thus, the intent element of false imprisonment does not entail an intent or motive to cause harm; indeed false imprisonments often appear to arise from initially legitimate motives. [Citation.]” (Id. at p. 716.)

18 As summarized above, Phillips argues that she was falsely imprisoned three times by Carpenter—twice in February 2023 and once in March 2023. The trial court determined that the FAC was “devoid of sufficient allegations” to allege false imprisonment, including “no allegations that anyone intended to confine Plaintiff.” While the trial court’s characterization of the first February 2023 incident may have been accurate, it does not properly describe the allegations of the second and third incidents. Although the FAC makes it clear that the focus is on Carpenter’s alleged efforts to block the movements of an IT staff member (in late February 2023) and a resource manager (in March 2023), the FAC also alleges that Carpenter blocked Phillips by standing in a doorway in late February and using both her self and a chair to block movements in March 2023. The FAC alleges that the March 2023 incident lasted “several minutes.” Defendants argue that Phillips’s false imprisonment cause of action cannot stand because Phillips did not allege facts showing how long Carpenter confined her. In addition, they contend that Phillips did not adequately allege that Carpenter intended to confine Phillips. Neither point has merit. First, Defendants cite no authority for the proposition that a specific length of time must be alleged to state a cause of action for false imprisonment. To withstand a demurrer, Phillips need only allege the ultimate facts, not any evidentiary facts. (Logan v. Southern Cal. Rapid Transit Dist. (1982) 136 Cal.App.3d 116, 126.) In addition, the case law establishes that there is no minimum length of time for the cause of action. Although the California Supreme Court in Fermino cited 15 minutes as an example, it did not hold that such a duration was a minimum. Rather, the Court expressly affirmed that the duration could be any ‘ “ “appreciable length of time, however short.” ’ ” (Fermino, supra, 7 Cal.4th at p. 715.) The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “appreciable” as “capable of being perceived or measured.” (Merriam-Webster Dict. Online (2026) <https://www.merriam- 19 webster.com/dictionary/appreciable> [as of September 10, 2026], archived at: https://perma.cc/3VPK-LLX4.) Therefore, an “appreciable” length of time would be one that Phillips, Carpenter, the unnamed IT staff member, or the unnamed resource manager could have perceived. (See also Rest.3d Torts: Intentional Torts to Persons, § 8, com. c [“The temporal scope of confinement can be very brief. If D grabs P by the arm against P’s will, refusing to let P go, that is sufficient for false imprisonment, even if P breaks free in less than a minute.”].) Here, the FAC alleges that Carpenter blocked the path for “several minutes.” Construing the allegation in Phillips’s favor as we must on demurrer, that is more than sufficient. With regard to whether Carpenter intended to confine Phillips as opposed to someone else, that question is not relevant. The elements of the tort require only an intent to confine “ ‘a person.’ ” (Fermino, supra, 7 Cal.4th at p. 716.) Whether Carpenter intended to confine the IT staff member, the resource manager, Phillips, or all three of them is not determinative. “The doctrine of transferred intent has long been recognized to apply to the tort of false imprisonment. [Citations.] Under this doctrine the intention to confine any person is a sufficient intent to render one liable to the person actually confined. It is immaterial that the actor did not know the identity of the person he intended to confine; nor does it matter that the actor intended to affect some person other than the one actually confined. [Citation.]” (Du Lac v. Perma Trans Products, Inc. (1980) 103 Cal.App.3d 937, 944; see also Rest.2d Torts, § 43 [“If an act done with the intention of affecting a third person imposes a confinement upon another, the actor is subject to liability to such other as fully as though it were intended so to affect him.”]; Rest.3d Torts: Intentional Torts to Persons, § 12, subd. (a) [“[T]he intent requirement for the tort is satisfied if the actor intends to cause the relevant tortious consequence to a third party, rather than to the plaintiff, but the actor’s conduct causes that consequence to the plaintiff.”].)

20 Defendants also argue that the alleged conduct occurred during workplace communications and is therefore protected under Civil Code section 47. In support of this argument, Defendants cite Hunsucker v. Sunnyvale Hilton Inn (1994) 23 Cal.App.4th 1498 (Hunsucker), which involved false imprisonment allegations against a hotel manager, even though that hotel manager did not himself block anyone’s movements. Rather, the manager called the police after housekeeping had reported seeing someone in a room “brandishing” a gun, and the police detained the family staying in the room. (Id. at p. 1500.) It turned out there was only a plastic toy gun. (Ibid.) On appeal from a summary judgment granted in favor of the hotel, the Court of Appeal affirmed, holding that the manager’s call to the police was privileged, and so no liability could result either for the communication or the subsequent conduct of the police in detaining the owner of the purported gun. (Id. at pp. 1504–1505.) Hunsucker has no application to the facts here. Carpenter’s conduct involved more than workplace “communications”: she allegedly used either her body or a chair to block the movements of IT personnel, a resource manager, and Phillips. We take no position as to whether any communications by Carpenter would have been privileged in these circumstances. We conclude only that her conduct in confining Phillips was not protected under Civil Code section 47. For these reasons, we conclude that the trial court erred in sustaining the demurrer to the false imprisonment cause of action. G. Leave to Amend the First Amended Complaint “We review for abuse of discretion the trial court’s denial of leave to amend. [Citation.] We determine whether there is a reasonable probability that the defect could be cured by amendment. [Citation.]” (Roe v. Hesperia Unified School Dist. (2022) 85 Cal.App.5th 13, 24.)

21 Phillips contends that the trial court violated her civil rights and procedural due process rights by making an “on-the-spot demand” of how Phillips would amend her complaint, and determining that she was “unable to provide sufficient argument at an impromptu request to present how she would amend her complaint.” She argues that “[t]he trial court required [her] to lay out her theories, legal grounds, statement of issues or some other something/argument for her petition in front of the court and Defendants on the spot without any notice that she would be required to do so.”7 Phillips does not establish any due process violation by the trial court. So long as the parties are afforded proper notice and a hearing, there is no due process violation in the sustaining of a demurrer without leave to amend. (See Vaughn v. Board of Police Com’rs (1943) 59 Cal.App.2d 771, 780–781.) Phillips does not claim that she was denied notice of the demurrer and a hearing. Indeed, she was afforded an opportunity to file a written opposition to the demurrer, and even though her 35-page opposition was 20 pages over the limit (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 3.1113(d)), the trial court exercised its discretion to “consider the entire opposition.” Moreover, it is well established that on a demurrer, it is the appellant’s “burden to identify specific facts showing the complaint can be amended to state a viable cause of action. [Citation.]” (Minnick v. Automotive Creations, Inc. (2017) 13 Cal.App.5th 1000, 1004.) Phillips does not assert that she provided any such facts in the trial court, and based on our own review, it does not appear that she addressed the possibility of amending the FAC anywhere in her 35-page opposition brief. Although we have determined that the defamation allegations are lacking in essential details, we also do not discern how the allegations could be supplemented to overcome the application of the common interest privilege or the 7 We recognize that Phillips is self-represented. Nevertheless, “self-represented litigants are held to the same standard of knowledge of law and procedure as an attorney.” (Simms v. Bear Valley Community Healthcare Dist. (2022) 80 Cal.App.5th 391, 406, fn. 5.)

22 requirement that the causes of action allege the publication of provably false facts rather than non-actionable opinions. The trial court did not err in denying leave to amend the defamation causes of action.

III. DISPOSITION The judgment is reversed. The matter is remanded to the trial court with directions to vacate its order sustaining the demurrer and to enter a new order overruling the demurrer as to the false imprisonment cause of action, and sustaining the demurrer without leave to amend as to all other causes of action. Each party shall bear its costs on appeal in the interests of justice. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.278(a)(5).)

23 CHUNG, J. WE CONCUR:

WILSON, ACTING P. J.

BROMBERG, J.

Phillips v. Young et al. H053018  Judge of the Santa Clara County Superior Court, assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution.