My question involves a roommate in the State of: California
The second week of June, I gave my roommates notice that I would be moving. I am in a lease with two others until the end of August. Though my roommate refused to allow me to sublease or assign the rest of my portion of a lease to someone, I ran an ad anyway. I was contacted by several people. One was a Harvard Graduate student on an internship who needed a short-term rental for July & August. She refused to meet him or anyone else. She said that it didn't give her enough time (this was 3 weeks before I was moving out or anyone would be in), she didn't want to live with a stranger (I was a stranger before I moved in) and she was afraid a short-term lessee would steal her things or be disrespectful. She said I had no right to ask her and that I was selfish.
I paid the double rent in July and moved. I went back on July 15th to retrieve the last of my things and returned the keys. She demanded that I leave the rent check (made payable to the landlord, not her). I complied, but felt harrassed and later decided to attempt to find another short-term renter. I stopped payment on the postdated rent check for August and ran another ad. I called her to let her know what I was doing and she went ballistic. She threatened to take me to court.
She called my current landlord to tell her I was bailing on rent. She emailed my mother (I am 29 years old, inappropriate) asking for her to pay my rent. She sent me a formal demand letter via email and said if I did not pay she would sue.
So should I pay or should I let her take me to court? I feel as though she forced me into this situation by not allowing me to find a suitable replacement, but I also don't want to take it to court if that is not a reasonable defense.

