Court Opinion

ID: 9479137
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:09:25.494898+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:50.983557
License: Public Domain

MIKYA, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I agree with the decision and thoughtful opinion of my colleagues. I write separately because I am troubled by the effort made by the government (and analyzed by the court) to apply an estoppel doctrine to the question of whether Entity B is a collective entity not entitled to claim the privilege against self-incrimination. My colleagues question “whether the doctrine of corporation by estoppel can ever establish a corporation for Fifth Amendment purposes.” At 90. I think that the answer is appropriate, but that the question is not.
I find the government’s argument more confusing than illuminating. It is clear that Entity B never held itself out to the government to be a corporation; if the only applicable doctrine is “estoppel” that indeed ends the inquiry. But the government is seeking to vindicate the public interest, rather than any victim of an estop-pel. A more appropriate inquiry would be whether an entity taking the benefits of the corporate form expressly or impliedly “waives” the privilege of non-production of documents. Such a doctrine of waiver better fits the fact-situations that arise in this Fifth Amendment thicket. But since the government did not claim such a waiver here, and since the facts seem not to sustain such a holding, the result ordained by my colleagues would be the same.