California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from Stacy & Witbeck, Inc. v. City and County of San Francisco, 47 Cal.App.4th 1, 54 Cal.Rptr.2d 530 (Cal. App. 1996):
The privilege furthers the policy of affording litigants and witnesses unimpeded access to our courts without fear of harassment from derivative tort suits. The assumption is that the external threat of liability will undermine the free communication so essential to the effective administration of justice. The privilege limits civil liability stemming from the protected communication, precluding the use of such communication as the basis for any tort action, save malicious prosecution. (Silberg v. Anderson, supra, 50 Cal.3d at pp. 213, 215-216, 266 Cal.Rptr. 638, 786 P.2d 365; Stacy I, supra, 36 Cal.App.4th at p. 1090, 44 Cal.Rptr.2d 472.)
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