Court Opinion

ID: 9624709
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:14:28.357607+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:53.287048
License: Public Domain

HENRIOD, Justice
(concurring).
I concur, but do not join in the dictum that seems to push the door ajar for possible future departure from our announced rule that the blue sky laws of this state shall be strictly construed.1 Any further liberality in construing a statute that presently is quite comprehensive in its inclusion of documents and plans within the term “security,” at some unpredictable fu*275ture time, conceivably could place in' the hands of a very few men a busybody power and authority that undoubtedly could be used as an instrument of harassment and quite possibly might or could paralyze traffic in many perfectly legitimate trading enterprises.
Blue sky laws are swords with two edges. Best they be not sharpened unduly on one side and dulled on the other. We should not be unmindful of the fact that in the last two or three years of feverish uranium stock trading, millions were lost to the small investors, not necessarily through purchase of unregistered securities, but in many instances through purchase of stocks that had been registered with the state securities commission. Nor should we be unmindful that the losses suffered in the latter category in many cases were attributable to the false sense of security engendered because the stocks had been registered with the securities commission, which fact in and of itself induced the clerk, the carpenter, the stenographer and the other little person, economically speaking, to make their purchases of what was to prove worthless stock. If this fact was not the inducement, unscrupulous salesmen frequently pointed to the fact of registration as proof of the merit and stability of what later turned out to be nothing but fancy looking paper. The only compensating feature about such losses seems to be the fact that the purchasers of the worthless stock were trying to get rich quick, without any effort, and hence deserved to lose. There are two schools of thought as to whether the paternalism of blue sky laws in attempting to protect the public, is a fair substitute for the individualism of the caveat emptor philosophy, and we should scrutinize such laws carefully and strictly before extending the scope of such paternalistic legislation.

. Guaranty Mortg. Co. v. Wilcox, Miller v. Stuart, cited in the main opinion.