Classmate Filing False Report, Trying to Get Me Kicked Out of School
My question involves defamation in the state of: California.
I have a classmate who became upset with me because a classmate & I had to report her to a professor for being uncooperative on a group assignment. Since that date she has taken my cell phone & threw it in the dirty tampon bin (in the bathroom) and filed a false report against me with our school saying that I told her I would "shoot her if she embarrassed me" this is something I would never say & apparently the school agreed & told her that if she was so "afraid" of me (as she had claimed to be) then it shouldn't have taken her 2 moths to report this. She then decided to take it one step further & tried to file a report with the Police Dept. who in fact said the same thing, they were not even going to investigate it because it's not legit.
I am concerned she will attempt to take this further & was thinking I should have a cease & desist served on her because from what I know the burden of proof is on her & since she can not prove this happened she is committing slander & libel by continuing to push the issue.
What should I do? I'm worried she will damage my reputation both at school and in the field.
Re: Classmate Filing False Report, Trying to Get Me Kicked Out of School
You're not going to be able to easily go to court and get an order preventing her from talking about you. If you felt endangered, you could seek a protective order. If you feel defamed you can bring a lawsuit in relation to the defamation and ask, as part of your relief, that she be enjoined from continuing to make the allegations at issue; but you can expect to drop thousands of dollars on the litigation with little chance of recovering enough money at the end of the day to even cover your costs - assuming you prevail.
Sometimes the best thing to do is to ignore the person until she goes away. So far, from what you've said, nobody believes her anyway.