Opinion ID: 792927
Heading Depth: 6
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Briscoe Rationales

Text: 54 The Briscoe Court gave two rationales in support of the common law immunity for witness testimony: (1) witnesses might be reluctant to come forward to testify without such immunity; and (2) once a witness is on the stand, his testimony might be distorted by the fear of subsequent liability. 460 U.S. at 333-34, 103 S.Ct. 1108. Neither of these rationales applies to this case. 55 After obtaining a default judgment on behalf of its client creditor, Defendant sought some mechanism to extract funds from Plaintiff to satisfy this judgment; Defendant chose garnishment. As explained, supra, under Ohio law, in order to garnish Plaintiff's property, Defendant was required to file an affidavit which stated that it had a reasonable basis to believe that the property was non-exempt. The focus, then, is on the incentives of Defendant in connection with this affidavit. 56 With respect to the first rationale, this Court finds it difficult to believe that Defendant would be reluctant to come forward to testify without absolute immunity. Defendant is responsible to its client; the client in this case enlisted Defendant to obtain money from Plaintiff. In such circumstances, Defendant is unlikely to disobey its client, nor will Defendant ordinarily refuse to take future creditor clients, without absolute immunity for its affidavit. The lack of absolute immunity may increase Defendant's costs of collecting a debt on behalf of a creditor; Defendant may actually be forced to obey Ohio law and conduct some sort of preliminary investigation of a debtor's assets to determine whether they are exempt. This increase in costs, however, will not be a disincentive for Defendant to pursue actions of garnishment. This cost can simply be passed on to the client; moreover, because all attorney debt collectors would have the same incentive to make this preliminary investigation, Defendant's competitive position would not be harmed by denying absolute immunity for its affidavit. In short, Ohio law requires a procedural safeguard that does increase the cost of pursuing a garnishment action; however, because garnishment actions will remain profitable for the attorney debt collector and its client, this Court has no doubt that the attorney debt collector will continue to bring such actions. Defendant's financial interest will overcome any reluctance to come forward based on the lack of absolute immunity; the same cannot be said, for example, for a witness who has no interest in the outcome of a criminal case. 57 Briscoe's second rationale is equally inapplicable. The Supreme Court in Briscoe was cognizant of a witness' fear of being completely candid without absolute immunity; the witness might be inclined to shade his testimony . . ., to magnify uncertainties, and thus to deprive the finder of fact of candid, objective, and undistorted evidence. 460 U.S. at 333, 103 S.Ct. 1108. Here, the possibility to introduce such variability into Defendant's testimony was limited. The affidavit made one and only one statement: that Defendant had a reasonable basis to believe that certain property of Plaintiff was non-exempt. Of course, Defendant and Plaintiff may disagree as to whether Defendant had such reasonable basis; for example, Plaintiff may claim that a preliminary investigation made by Defendant was insufficient. This, however, is beside the point of Briscoe. The focus is on the testimony itself, not on the factual basis of the testimony. With the affidavit, Defendant has no room to shade its testimony, to magnify uncertainties, to distort the evidence; Defendant cannot say that it might have a reasonable basis, or that there is a possibility that it does not have a reasonable basis. Defendant cannot be equivocal in its affidavit: it states that it either has a reasonable basis or it does not. In other words, Defendant, even if it has an incentive to play it safe with ambiguous language because of a lack of absolute immunity, it has no ability to do so, as Defendant must make the definitive statement that it has a reasonable basis. Thus, Defendant will not have to fear repercussion from a disgruntled opponent over the meaning and implication of every sworn word, (Def.Br.28), as the battle will not be fought over semantics so much as the substance of the testimony. 58 The fact that Defendant has to be unequivocal in the affidavit without the protection of absolute immunity will not cause Defendant to cease submitting these affidavits and to stop seeking garnishment actions, as this would be wholly contrary to Defendant's financial interests. Instead, Defendant will have the incentive to conduct some sort of investigation or have some other reasonable basis for its affidavit, as required by Ohio law. 59