KRISTI HEFFINGTON v. RONALD F. MOSER
Court of Special Appeals of Maryland, D Eyler, August 30, 2018,
Civil Proceedings – 5th Amendment – Where a party is involved in a criminal and civil case involving the same conduct, a judge should weigh the harm of granting a stay against the party’s rights under the Fifth Amendment and right to access to courts.

Facts:
Kristi Heffington sued her former employer, Ronald Moser, for allegedly making false statements to the police and insurance company that Heffington had stolen money and engaged in identity fraud.
Heffington was questioned by Moser’s attorney during a deposition and answered questions without invoking her Fifth Amendment right not to testify.
Heffington was later indicted by a grand jury in PG County for theft and identity fraud.
Heffington then requested that the civil case be held until after the criminal case was disposed of, arguing that to protect herself in the criminal case, Kristi would be invoking the Fifth Amendment in the civil suit and, therefore, would be unavailable to testify on her own behalf. The judge in the civil case denied this request. Because Heffington had no evidence to produce in the civil case, she lost.
Heffington appealed, arguing that the civil trial court should have stayed the case until the criminal case was over.

Held: The Court of Special Appeals held that the civil judge should have weighed Heffington’s Fifth Amendment right and her right to the courts in deciding whether or not to grant the stay.

Fifth Amendment – The Fifth Amendment states that “No person… shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.”

Fifth Amendment – A witness in a civil case is still protected by the Fifth Amendment if that testimony could later be used against him/her in a later criminal proceeding.

Fifth Amendment – The fact that a witness testifies in a deposition does not mean that they she has waived her Fifth Amendment right at trial, especially where she was not facing criminal charges at the time of the deposition but was facing charges at the time of trial.

Article 19 – The Maryland Declaration of Rights protects people against unreasonable restrictions on access to courts

From the Case: “When a party is asserting a constitutional privilege, any detriment to that party from doing so must ‘be no more than is necessary to prevent unfair and unnecessary prejudice to the other side.'” “The court gave no consideration to Kristi’s interests under Article 19. The court was obligated, “at a minimum… to balance Heffington’s right to assert her Fifth Amendment privilege without penalty and her right of access to the courts against the Mosers’ right to defend… against Kristi’s allegations and interest in timely resolution of the proceedings against them.” Nor did the court consider whether a stay would not merely inconvenience the Mosers but actually would prejudice them. By not applying the proper legal standard in ruling on the motion to stay, the court abused its discretion.