Knopf v. Esposito
- Sarah Netburn
- 1:17-cv-05833
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Knopf v. Esposito, Judge Cote denied the Knopfs’ motion to compel Melissa Ringel’s testimony after she invoked the Fifth Amendment.
The ruling affected Norma and Michael Knopf’s effort to compel non-party Melissa Ringel to answer deposition questions; the court allowed Ringel to maintain her Fifth Amendment privilege.
What happened
In Knopf v. Esposito, Norma and Michael Knopf questioned Melissa Ringel during a deposition about a 2016 telephone call. Ringel had answered questions about that call in a deposition in a prior related proceeding but invoked the Fifth Amendment in this case.
The Knopfs argued that Ringel had given up her protection against self-incrimination because she previously answered questions about the same call. The court found that the two lawsuits were separate proceedings involving different claims and defendants, and that Ringel faced new reasons for concern since her earlier testimony.
The court denied the Knopfs’ motion to compel Ringel to answer the deposition questions. The opinion was issued by Judge Denise Cote.
The detailed version
- Knopf v. Esposito · No. 1:17-cv-05833
- Sarah Netburn
- Jan. 27, 2021
Background
Norma and Michael Knopf sued Frank M. Esposito, Dorsey & Whitney, LLP, Nathaniel H. Akerman, Edward S. Feldman, and Michael Hayden Sanford. The opinion states that the Knopfs alleged the defendants conspired to violate 42 U.S.C. § 1983 by depriving them of due process. Their allegations concerned discussions involving Esposito, his wife Melissa Ringel, and orders issued by the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division regarding a property identified in the opinion as the Penthouse.
Ringel, who was not a party to the case, was deposed on December 14, 2020. When the Knopfs asked questions about a January 12, 2016 telephone call, Ringel invoked the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and declined to answer. The Knopfs moved on January 19, 2021, for an order overruling Ringel’s privilege-based objections and compelling her testimony.
Issue
The issue was whether Ringel’s answers to questions about the same telephone call during a deposition in a prior related proceeding meant that she had waived her privilege in this case. A testimonial waiver is a voluntary surrender of the right not to provide potentially self-incriminating testimony. The court explained that courts must presume against finding such a waiver and that a waiver in one proceeding generally does not affect a witness’s rights in another proceeding.
Court’s Analysis
The court determined that the prior related proceeding and this case were not the same judicial proceeding for purposes of waiver. It stated that the actions were separate, involved distinct claims, and were brought against different defendants. The court also noted that Ringel was not mentioned in the earlier complaint, while she was mentioned in the operative complaint in this case and her husband was named as a defendant.
The court further found that Ringel had “new grounds for apprehension” since her earlier deposition. Based on those circumstances, the court concluded that her prior testimony did not waive her Fifth Amendment privilege in this case.
Disposition
The court denied the Knopfs’ January 19, 2021 motion to compel testimony from Ringel.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.