A San Antonio nurse filed suit against the Santa Rosa hospital for defamation.  The nurse, Tammy Perez, claims the hospital performed an abortion a few years ago.  She says the hospital then fired her after she raised the issue to various Roman Catholic church officials.  The Santa Rosa hospital is affiliated with the Roman Catholic church.  The trial is ongoing.  In recent testimony, the defensse lawyer accused Ms. Perez of lying on her application when she was initially hired by Santa Rosa.  In cross examination, the defense laawyer said Ms. Perez omitted the fact that she had been terminated from a prior job at another hospital.  Ms. Perez had simply said she came to the Santa Rosa because of  "family."  Apparently, in reality, Ms.Perez had been terminated due to ethical issues regarding some medical treatment.  See San Antonio Express News report.  

The defense lawyer also brought out that Ms.Perez lied when she applied for a job after leaving the Santa Rosa hospital.  She wrote "personal" regarding her reason for leaving the Santa Rosa when she later applied for a position at the Nix hospital.  

"Family."  "Personal."  None of these reasons are lies, but they do serve to mislead.  All my clients who have endured termination agonize over what to write on applications.  Simple one or two words do not come close to explaining what happened when they were unjustly fired.  Yes, a clever defense lawyer can take those half-truths to make a plaintiff look less than honest.  

Why she left the Santa Rosa should have nothing to do with defamation.  Subsequent jobs should have no relevance to what happened at the prior job.  Telling the Nix a half-truth does not help prove or disprove defamation at the Santa Rosa hospital.  There are many cases (ie, precedent) holding that what happens at a subsequent job is not admissible regarding what happens at the prior job.  I would be interested to know how the defense lawyer, Cindi Benedict, got that information into evidence.