NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPI RES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION AND, IF FILED, DETERMINED

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL

OF FLORIDA

SECOND DISTRICT

J.L.C., ) ) Appellant, ) ) v. ) Case No. 2D14-3241 ) STATE OF FLORIDA, ) ) Appellee. ) ) Opinion filed April 6, 2016. Appeal from the Circuit Court for Pasco County; Lynn Tepper, Judge. Howard L. Dimmig, II, Public Defender, and Matthew J. Salvia, Assistant Public Defender, Bartow, for Appellant. Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Brandon R. Christian, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Appellee.

LUCAS, Judge.

J.L.C. appeals a restitution order entered in connection with his adjudication of delinquency for burglary of a dwelling. In his appeal, J.L.C. takes issue- 2 - with the circuit court's valuation of various items he stole fr om the victim, Mr. Tibbs. We affirm the court's valuations in all respects save one. Among the items J.L.C. misappropriated, and for which the Stat e sought restitution, was a five-gallon water jug that held loose change . Mr. Tibbs testified that his jug was "half full of coins" that were, apparently, all sil ver change—nickels, dimes, and quarters—no pennies. He estimated that this half-full wate r jug held $3500 worth of

coins. When asked on direct exam ination how he arrived at this sum, he explained, somewhat enigmatically: How I arrived at that number was through a stepdaughter of mine . . . . I gave her a jug of glass—five–gallon jug, glass . . . which blew up on me over a cold air register . . .

. [I]t took me five—$200 in pennies to finish out this jug. This is how come I estimated at the $3500.

Counsel for J.L.C. did not cross -examine Mr. Tibbs, and the Sta te did not proffer any further evidence about the value of the coins. J.L.C., on the other hand, testified that when he took the jug of coins to a Coinstar machine at a local grocery store, he received about $421, after a deducted fee of approximately $58. The circuit court, in announcing its ruling, rejected J.L.C.'s testimony about the ma chine's computation, accepted Mr. Tibbs' estimation, and entered a restitution order in the amount of $4400, of which $3500 was attributed to the coins. We review a circuit court's determination of property value wit hin a restitution order for abuse of discretion. Danzey v. State, 41 Fla. L. Weekly D342 (Fla. 2d DCA Feb. 5, 2016); State v. Shields, 31 So. 3d 281, 282 (Fla . 2d DCA 2010). The State bears the burden of proving the amount awarded in restitu tion by a preponderance of the evidence. S.M. v. State, 159 So. 3d 966, 968 (Fla. 2d DCA- 3 - 2015). That evidence must be competent and substantial. Danze y, 41 Fla. L. Weekly at D342; S.M., 159 So. 3d at 968. We are not entirely clear what M r. Tibbs was attempting to con vey to the circuit court from his testimony, much less how he ultimately a rrived at his valuation for these coins. We are certain, though, that the $3500 he opined was in this jug of change was, at best, an estimated guess. 1 While an owner may offer an opinion of the value of his or her own property in a restitution proceeding, that opini on must be based upon a competent foundation. See Fernandez v. State, 98 So. 3d 730, 7 32 (Fla. 2d DCA 2012) ("Even though property owners are generally qualified to testif y regarding the fair market value of their property, the amount of loss 'must be establishe d through more than mere speculation; it must be based on competent evidence.' " (citati on omitted) (quoting Glaubius v. State, 688 So. 2d 913, 916 (Fla. 1997))); Gonzalez v. State, 40 So. 3d 86, 89 (Fla. 4th DCA 2010) (observing that "[a] victim must have a sufficient predicate upon which to base his or her opinion on the value of items stolen") . Mr. Tibbs' experience filling a five-gallon jug with pennies was not a competent basi s for him to derive the value of loose, silver change in another half-filled five-gallo n jug. Indeed, we rejected a similar attempt to value a coin collecti on under similar circumstances in Miller v. State, 833 So. 2d 318 (Fla. 2d DCA 2003). In Miller, the victim's son testified at a restitution hearing that his mo ther had between eight and

1 As best we can surmise, Mr. Tibbs was proceeding under the assu mption that since another of his five-gallon jugs had held two hundred dollars' worth of pennies—that is, 20,000 pennies—a s imilar jug, half-filled, wou ld presumably hold 10,000 nickels, dimes and quarters. Among the problems with th at assumption, besides its vast imprecision, is that nickels, dimes, and quarters are not minted in the same size as pennies.- 4 - ten one-gallon bags of coins that were stolen, a trove that he thought amounted to $10,000. Id. at 319. We noted that, although the witness knew the denominations in his mother's collection, he could not recall the number of the particular coins within the bags or whether each of the bags contained similar amounts of c oins. Id. Like Mr. Tibbs, the witness in Miller attempted to draw a comparison fro m a prior coin-counting— in that case, a pawnbroker's p revious payment of $1000 for anot her box of coins that contained approximately a fifth of the contents of one of the g allon bags. See id. We observed that his valuation was "speculative opinion testimony" based on hearsay and reversed the circuit court's restitution order. Id. Here, Mr. Tibbs' opinion about his jug

of coins suffers from the same speculative shortcoming we found in Miller's bags of

coins. In so holding, we do not in any way impugn the sincerity of Mr . Tibbs' attempt to estimate how much money his jug held. But an estima te from a guess is still just a guess. And a mere "guesstimate" of value, such as here, does not constitute competent, substantial evidence t hat will support a restitution order. Cf. Bennett v. State, 944 So. 2d 524, 526 (Fla. 4th DCA 2006) ("Guesstimates a nd speculative testimony are inappropriate evidence on which to base an award of restitution."). Accordingly, we reverse the order of the circuit court. Reversed and remanded for a new restitution hearing.

VILLANTI, C.J., and SILBERMAN, J., Concur.