James Hosner v. State of Florida
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
Date FiledAugust 31, 2022
Docket2D20-1344
StatusPublished
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Full Opinion
DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF FLORIDA
SECOND DISTRICT
JAMES HOSNER,
Appellant,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA,
Appellee.
No. 2D20-1344
August 31, 2022
Appeal from the Circuit Court for Pinellas County; Chris Helinger,
Judge.
Howard L. Dimmig, II, Public Defender, and Jeffrey Sullivan, Special
Assistant Public Defender, Bartow, for Appellant.
Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Donna S. Koch,
Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Appellee.
PER CURIAM.
Affirmed. See Reves v. Ernst & Young, 494 U.S. 56, 67-70, 68
n.4 (1990) (issuer of promissory note failed to rebut presumption
that the note was a security; Howey1 test is not relevant to that
determination); Landreth Timber Co. v. Landreth, 471 U.S. 681, 692
(1985) ("[A]pplying the Howey test to . . . other types of instruments
. . . would make the Acts' enumeration of many types of
instruments superfluous."); Githler v. Grande, 289 So. 3d 533, 539
(Fla. 2d DCA 2019) ("In short, per Landreth, if it looks like a duck
and quacks like a duck, we don't have to ask if it's a pig.");
Bookhardt v. State, 710 So. 2d 700, 701 (Fla. 5th DCA 1998)
(promissory notes were securities within the meaning of section
517.021(18),2 Florida Statutes (1998) (citing Reves, 494 U.S. 56));
see also Muhammad v. State, 782 So. 2d 343, 359 (Fla. 2001) ("[T]he
trial court's ruling on an evidentiary matter will be affirmed even if
the trial court ruled for the wrong reasons, as long as the evidence
or an alternative theory supports the ruling.").
NORTHCUTT, VILLANTI, and SLEET, JJ., concur.
Opinion subject to revision prior to official publication.
1 S.E.C. v. W.J. Howey Co., 328 U.S. 293, 298-99 (1946)
(defining "investment contract").
2 Now section 517.021(22).
2