The folks at Prenda law asserted their fifth amendment rights in a civil trial when the judge accused them of fraud and other criminal acts. In other cases where Prenda Law was a plaintiff, a judge allow the defendants to use that assertion (of their 5th amendment rights) as evidence that Prenda was not trustworthy (i.e. don’t accept any of their statements or assertions without reliable proof).
To put it simple: if person A asserts their fifth amendment privelges in trial xyz (whether it is a civil or a criminal trial) opposing parties are allowed to draw inferences from person A’s silence in other civil trials, but not in criminal trials (criminal trials have much stricter standards of evidence).