Case ID: so2d_707/html/1209-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Howard GREENBERG a/k/a Howard S. Greenberg, Petitioner, v. CITICORP LEASING, INC., Respondent.
    No. 97-3425.
    District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District.
    April 15, 1998.
    Richard J. Alan Cahan, and Julie Anne Chimerine of Becker & Poliakoff, P.A., West Palm Beach, for petitioner.
    James J. Webb of Haley, Sinagra & Perez, P.A., Fort Lauderdale, for respondent.
   PER CURIAM.

Petitioner, Howard Greenberg, is a judgment debtor of respondent, Citicorp Leasing, Inc. At a deposition in aid of execution, Greenberg refused to answer certain questions, invoking his Fifth Amendment right to silence. Citicorp moved to compel and the trial court entered an order requiring Green-berg to submit an affidavit attesting “to the crime for which prosecution is feared.” Greenberg alleges that he has been contacted by the United States Department of Justice regarding the potential for his criminal prosecution. Significantly, the order requires Greenberg to disclose his own subjective fear, not what government officials had identified as the scope of potential criminal prosecution.

The order on review is quashed and the case is remanded to the trial court for proceedings consistent with Magid v. Winter, 654 So.2d 1037 (Fla. 4th DCA 1995); Eisenstein v. Citizens & Southern Nat’l Bank of Florida, 561 So.2d 1203 (Fla. 4th DCA 1990); Meek v. Dean Witter Reynolds, Inc., 458 So.2d 412 (Fla. 4th DCA 1984); and Novak v. Snieda, 659 So.2d 1138 (Fla. 2d DCA 1995).

KLEIN and GROSS, JJ., and OWEN, WILLIAM C., Jr., Senior Judge, concur.