Audit object was being passed as byref but getting re-instantiated within the method

Fab2ApprovalSystem/Controllers/AuditController.cs

@@ -58,6 +58,7 @@ public class AuditController : Controller {
         try {
             bool isAdmin = (bool)Session[GlobalVars.IS_ADMIN];
             int userId = (int)Session[GlobalVars.SESSION_USERID];
+            audit = auditDMO.GetAuditItem(issueID, userId);
             AuditEdit auditEdit = auditDMO.GetAuditEdit(issueID, audit, isAdmin, userId);
             if (auditEdit.RedirectToAction)
                 return RedirectToAction("ReadOnlyAudit", new { auditNo = audit.AuditNo });

Fab2ApprovalSystem/DMO/AuditDMO.cs

@@ -401,7 +401,6 @@ public class AuditDMO {
             result.Is8DQA = "true";
         }
 
-        audit = GetAuditItem(issueID, userId);
         // transform audit users from string to list, delimited by a comma.
         if (audit.Auditees == null) {
             result.AuditeeNames = new List<string>();