Court Opinion

ID: 9583370
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:37:59.086101+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:38:58.812527
License: Public Domain

ANDERSON, Judge
(dissenting):
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s conclusion in regard to the efficacy of the Fifth Amendment to the issues in this case.
As to the invocation of the Fifth Amendment privilege by the Wife, I disagree with the reasoning and analysis of the issue by the majority. Because the Wife asserts her Fifth Amendment privilege, the majority bludgeons her with an adverse inference and a denial of any affirmative relief. Sim*648plistically put, this judicial “Scud Missile” is inappropriate when juxtaposed to the exercise of a constitutional right.
The rule adopted in this case turns the Fifth Amendment on its head by requiring the person to forfeit all offensive and defensive rights in the civil venue. The iniquitous result of the rule adopted by the majority is to eradicate all standing in the civil venue by a person claiming the Fifth Amendment constitutional privilege. Such a rule is infected with a prosecutorial mentality that persons taking the Fifth Amendment lose other citizenship rights. Admittedly, the rule spawned by the majority eliminates confusion but eviscerates constitutional protections. To strip a civil litigant of all protection in the civil venue as a consequence of taking the Fifth Amendment is a judicial exodus from constitutional principles that is illogical.
Here, immunity was given and probably no Fifth Amendment privilege exists. The majority chooses to write on the Fifth Amendment privilege, thus forcing the issue.
It is apodictic the grant of absolute immunity vitiates any Fifth Amendment privilege. However, in that regard it is essential to evaluate the type of immunity given. In State v. Thrift, 312 S.C. 282, 440 S.E.2d 341 (1994), the South Carolina Supreme Court edified the bench and bar in regard to the bifiircation of immunity, i e., (1) use immunity and (2) transactional immunity.
In dissonance to the writing penned by the majority, I do not believe a pandemic rule is extant on this issue. There is a significant body of law in this country rejecting the position adopted by the majority. The better rule is articulated in Brewer v. Brewer, 249 Ga. 517, 291 S.E.2d 696 (1982). In Brewer, the Georgia Supreme Court held:
Simpson v. Simpson, 233 Ga. 17, 209 S.E.2d 611 (1974), holds that although no inference of guilt can be drawn from a privileged refusal to testify in a criminal case, and although the exercise of the privilege in a civil case cannot be used in a subsequent criminal case against the party, it is permissible to draw an unfavorable inference in a civil case from the privileged refusal to testify in that case.
Brewer, 291 S.E.2d at 697. See also Robinson v. Robinson, 328 Md. 507, 615 A.2d 1190, 1194 (1992) (“[W]here a party in a civil proceeding invokes the Fifth Amendment privilege *649against self incrimination in refusing to answer a question posed during that party’s testimony, the fact finder is permitted to draw an adverse inference from that refusal.”); Molloy v. Molloy, 46 Wis.2d 682, 176 N.W.2d 292 (1970) (although a person may invoke Fifth Amendment in civil case in order to protect himself from use of such evidence against him in criminal action ... an inference against his interest might be drawn; since inference is irresistible and logical in such circumstances, court may as matter of law draw the inference); Id. (such an inference is based upon implied admission that truthful answer would tend to prove witness had committed the criminal act or might constitute a criminal act; the inference is not based upon the condition the witness is seeking relief or ought not to receive relief because he has invoked the privilege).
The majority cites the Georgia case of Master v. Savannah Sur. Assocs., Inc., 148 Ga.App. 678, 252 S.E.2d 186 (1979). Master is a 1979 Georgia Court of Appeals case and certainly is not controlling precedent in the face of Brewer, supra.
A reasonable and commonsensical approach is to invoke an adverse inference, but not to emasculate all rights of the person claiming the Fifth Amendment privilege. The adverse inference drawn from the invocation of the Fifth Amendment privilege should not be followed with the draconian result of denial of affirmative relief or affirmative defense.