Four co-workers are suing a Surrey, British Columbia, man for what they claim is their fair share of a $1 million lottery prize.
Ding Jiu Du, Haret Dagane, Elwood Prado and Tounkham Homsombath say that on Dec. 12, 2018, they gave Hung Sengsouvanh some money left over from a contribution to an upcoming potluck Christmas party at the lighting factory where they all worked.
The co-workers say they each proposed to kick in $5 to buy a $25 ticket for the Lotto Max jackpot for Dec. 14 because it was such a large jackpot.
They say that Hung, who was employed as the "lead hand" at the factory where they worked, volunteered to purchase the ticket after work and the parties verbally agreed that any winnings from the lottery would be divided evenly.
"Some of the plaintiffs had been friends with the defendant Hung for many years, and all of them had a good relationship at work and trusted him and respected him as their lead hand," says a notice of civil claim filed in B.C. Supreme Court. "It was based on that trust that the plaintiffs believed that they did not have to put the contract into writing."
Hung bought the ticket as agreed, but his co-workers did not hear from him over the weekend of Dec. 15 and 16, and Hung did not attend at the factory on the following Monday, says the lawsuit. The co-workers only learned via social media that Hung had won one of the $1 million Maxmillions prizes using the ticket bought from the money provided by them, says the suit.
"The plaintiffs asked the defendant Hung to provide them with their equal shares of the $1 million prize which would be $200,000 per plaintiff," says the lawsuit. "The defendant Hung has repeatedly refused to provide the plaintiffs with their equal shares of the prize."
Lotto Max is a nationwide lottery game with jackpots between $10 million and $60 million, and with multiple additional prizes known as Maxmillions worth $1 million each.
The co-workers say that they were "particularly vulnerable" to Hung because he had sole physical possession of their money to buy the ticket and subsequently had sole physical possession of the ticket that was purchased. As the lead hand at their factory, Hung had a degree of authority and control over them and owed them a fiduciary duty, they say.
The plaintiffs allege that Hung told them he had transferred some of the $1 million prize to friends or family and that he would also be using the funds to pay toward or pay off the mortgage on his Surrey home. They say they also learned that Hung planned to quit his job at the factory and planned to travel using the prize that they were entitled to.
The suit seeks several remedies including a request that the court make a finding that Hung is liable to his co-workers and an order that Hung pay them their share of the winnings.
No response has yet been filed to the lawsuit that contains allegations that have not been tested in court. Hung could not be reached for comment.
Money changes people. Hung was not a good friend after all. I hope the co-workers win in court.
😃
So hung was taking care of family & " other friends" & now these co workers are ticked? The reason he told them that was because these co workers Lost w/ the tickets they purchased as a group. "Lead hand" on the job means nothing, that's like saying if you introduce your spouse, gf or bf- hung has authority to plant a kiss on your significant other because he " has authority?" These co workers are reaching. Could hung have deceived them, possibly, but he seemed " honest " enough to tell them upfront where the money would be going. It takes a pair to say that. Their stupidity in not getting things in writing is their own downfall. I guess the pools North of the border operate differently.
The verdict on this is: Get everything in writing, even if the pool asks for just a dollar entry, and get your own copies, like asap. Last but not least, stay the heck away from lottery pools- l mean, look here!
Any form of gambling should always be a solo endeavor.
"I hope the co-workers win in court."
Yeah, me too. It makes perfect sense that they would have considered putting it in writing and then decided they didn't need to take 2 minutes to do that, so there's no way they could be lying in hopes of getting part of his prize.
using the ticket with the money provided by them may be the sticking point here. unless hung notified them what the numbers were that he purchased with the pool's money then he can just say he won with an extra ticket(s) he purchased separately. it's not clear in the article if hung said anything at all to them before or after the drawing.
but he seemed " honest " enough to tell them upfront where the money would be going. It takes a pair to say that.
Are ya kidding me
That was a slap to the face for him to tell them where the money he owes to them was going.
He was not honest enough to tell them he won, did not contact them all weekend and did not
show up to work the following Monday. It takes a pair alright!
I hope they get the winnings that belong to them.
https://lotto.bclc.com/group-play.html
It's Hard To Say How Much Of A Case They Have
As noise-gate Mentioned,There Is Nothing In Writing.
So,How Much Weight Does A Verbal Agreement Hold?
From The BCLC Website
Playing as a group?
Whether you play with family, friends or co-workers, playing as a group lets you pool your money together for more chances to win!
The way you choose to manage your lottery purchases and potential winnings is up to the group members involved. Here are some tips to keep in mind when playing as a group and some steps that may help avoid any misunderstandings.
Group Play Tips
Appoint someone as your group's captain.
A group captain can coordinate collecting participant's money, buying the group's tickets, tracking group winnings and posting results.
When purchasing a ticket at retail, the group captain should print his or her name on the front or back, along with the words "In Trust". This indicates the ticket belongs to a group.
Keep a record of who is participating in each draw
When purchasing as a group, it's always a good idea to have a record of which group members have contributed to the ticket purchases. Make it easier to manage your group play by downloading the Group Play Agreement Form. It's a good idea to provide each group member with a copy of the completed Group Play Agreement Form.
The Group Prize Agreement form is a form that is required when a group lottery ticket wins a prize of $10,000 or greater and must be completed by all group members entitled to a share of the prize won. Download the Group Prize Agreement Form here.
All group members must be at least 19 years old
Only persons 19 years of age or older may purchase lottery tickets in BC.
Understand what happens if a group member does not contribute for a draw
Be sure there is a clear understanding amongst the group members of what happens when a group member is away and does not contribute into a draw. Be sure this understanding is communicated to all group members.
Ask for a group copy ticket
When the group captain purchases the ticket(s), ask for a group copy ticket that can be distributed to each group member so each player can check numbers if they wish.
Only an original lottery ticket can be used to claim a prize.
Don't write your company name on your ticket
If the group is organized at your workplace, don't write your company name on the ticket, as this could imply your company may have a stake in the prize.
Use legal names
To claim large prizes, the group captain's identification must be presented and must match the name on the ticket. Putting nicknames or group names on the ticket could create delays in a prize claim.
Disclaimer
The Group Play Tips information contained on this website are made available by the British Columbia Lottery Corporation (BCLC) solely for the convenience of lottery group players in British Columbia. BCLC assumes no responsibility whatsoever for the entitlement to any prize of any group or group member. For more information about Group Play or for prize-claiming instructions, call BCLC's Customer Support Centre at 1-866-815-0222.
Hold on a minute Nikkicute, Lets backtrack a bit here since you took issue with what l posted.
1- Hung, according to the co workers, purchased the lottery tickets for the group: Fact.
2- They were obviously under the impression they had lost, until Hung is found out to have won $1 mil: Fact.
3- There seems to nothing written concerning purchasing lottery tickets " outside the group ." : Fact.
4- They must have at some point spoken to Hung about the $1mil win, because Hung told them " what he intended to do with the money" - My point in being " honest" is that you don't look your co workers in the eye and say " Yeah, we won, but my plans are to give it to family & friends."
5- You assuming that Hung is guilty of theft, l see nothing of the kind, until proven otherwise.
6- We only have the co worker's word that Hung did not contact them, not show up for this or that. This is " their" complaint. As for not writing up an agreement because you " trust" the guy collecting the lottery money is silly thinking. It's like going in for major surgery, your surgeon shows up, takes a few yawns and tells you " was out partying last night till the late hours, but don't worry, you'll be fine." Would you feel fine Nikkicute?
Your highlighted section just gave suggestions LB, the people who make up the pool have the " right to add" their own rules and regs.
For instance : We need to draw up a contract, if questions are asked from the others in the group, why? Because if there is any " pushing & shoving " we have it in writing. Those crazy ideas of " l am putting in any extra 5 dollars for my son in our pool" won't cut it with the group.
I would like to know when this suit was filed? Was it in January? When did they meet with Hung to ask about the million dollar win, what was said? Did Hung say he bought the winning ticket separately from the group, did he inform them about doing that? Did Hung have a right to inform the group? Just coming up with a lawsuit assuming you were robbed of your lottery winnings takes more than just " We trusted each other so much that we didn't need no stinking contract agreement." We buddies for life, we intend to speak at each other's funerals, till it's the last man standing- we that thick.. yeah, right.
What is clear is he won $1m and they want a cut. as to what ticket won that $1m is unclear. he could have saved the drama by Giving a photocopy of the tickets purchased with the group money BEFORE THE DRAW to someone in the group. it's up to the lawyers now, and when lawyers are involved, everyone loses
This case is reminiscent of the one in NJ. Involving a guy named Americo,* l think, Latino, heavy set by all accounts. He too was the guy who collected the pool money, suddenly quit the job after winning millions, but the courts found him guilty & he ended up paying the others in the lottery pool. Whether there was an agreement in that situation , l have no idea, but Canadian law will rule in either of these parties favor.
Not much is being said as to whether these co workers got copies of their tickets or not, one thing is clear SG- they very unhappy, and it's not hard to see why, while they toil at that lighting factory , hung will be travelling the world, visiting the Opera house in Sydney Australia, stepping on the grass at the Santiago Bernabeu, going on a safari in Africa, cruising down the Nile- it's enough to get their blood boiling.
me too,
To the people always yammering on that lottery winners should be private and their names withheld, this is a prime example of why it should not be.
ALWAYS get it in writing.....or you can get HUNG!
Co-workers file lawsuit alleging Surrey man stole lotto winnings
This video and article is from CTV News Vancouver
Well it " appears" l was wrong. The video piece covered more than the LP take on this.
I don't like the son's explanation: He is in Thailand. He does not owe them any money. The sister bought the ticket & he cashed it. This case should send a clear signal to future or ongoing lottery pools: Draw up a contract, get it in writing. Save yourself the headaches of tracking down your money.
So True!
They didn't photocopy the playslip and had everyone sign the copies? How stupid is that? Gotta wonder if it is made up claims.
l for one am looking for more answer, not from these co workers, or hung's son, but hung himself. I want to hear what he has to say apart from : l have been traveling, my sister won, l don't owe these guys anything.He is going to have to dig deep to come up with some real answers. I am not buying into these co workers story just yet. Their stupidity gives me pause,that's my real concern.l can understand if you have One stupid guy in the pool, but all 3 or 4? Their continued story about " lead hand" as an excuse, just doesn't wash.l mean what else could they cook up? They not out of the woods here with me, they do not have the smoking gun...yet.
It looks like it was an impromptu pool maybe on the day of the drawing. Because this story is incomplete the opinions of our LP resident pool and legal experts are just that. At best his co-workers only know Hung had a winning ticket with no proof that ticket was part of their pool.
I worked with two guys that split a $20 million jackpot that through the years were in many pools with other employees, but only one of the others expected a cut. He claimed he made a verbal agreement with both of them that if any of them won, they would share with him. The thing is, he tried to make the same agreement with anybody that played lottery games ignoring the fact that hardly any of us agreed.
We had a 30 player pool that included all three of them and the guy running the pool gave each of us a copy of the tickets and the names of everyone in the pool for that drawing. Today I try to avoid getting into any spur-of-the-moment pools or verbal agreements. With these monster size jackpots, I rarely mention even purchasing tickets.
"l have been traveling, my sister won, l don't owe these guys anything."
Unless they can prove they owned part of the winning ticket, Hung is correct.
l think you right on the " impromptu " pool, why? Because despite them saying they trusted hung, they have yet to say " We have been playing the lottery with hung for years, or months" and never expected this behavior. Thing is, they might just throw in that line before the judge Stack to add more weight to their allegations. Desperate times, call for desperate measures. If there is one thing we all know for certain: Win or lose, this gang of 4 are never playing the lottery with hung again, and vice versa.
I am leaning towards believing the employees based on the winner giving contradictory facts about the ticket. It also would not be unusual for a group of employees to be hesitant to question someone who outranked them. Fairly common in the work place.
What "contradictory facts" has the winner given? The only thing I've seen are a bunch of allegations from the coworkers who want a share of the prize, a few things from somebody claiming to be the guy's son, and some very brief information from the lottery.
"Lead hand" must mean something somewhere, but until we get Hung's explanation if ever, we can pretend it means something special. Oh, and have you noticed the Canadians seem to sue after the winner get the prize money?
I never play in a syndicate, it can lead to too many problems. I only play by subscription, everything is in my name. So others can't claim to be involved.
Very simple to Google lead hand. A lead hand oversees a group of workers. It is a type of supervisory position.
From the article Meat provided the only fact is Hung collected the winnings and left town.
Here's a fun fact: The lawsuit states the workers had a verbal agreement but that because of their friendship, they didn’t think they needed to write up a contract.
Are "contradictory facts" something like "alternative facts"?
I doubt that the lottery is lying about who won what, so we can be pretty certain that Hung submitted a winning ticket and collected the prize. AFAIK, everything else is just something said by people who may or may not have their own agenda or be reliable reporters.
There are a few people I trust completely, but honest misunderstandings cause an awful lot of disputes. Putting things in writing may not clear up any misunderstandings but it makes it easier to resolve any disputes later on. In this case it would at least have established that Hung and the 4 coworkers really had an agreement to chip in and buy a ticket. If they were smart (which I'm inclined to discount since they didn't take a couple of minutes to put it in writing) they could also have made it clear what ticket belonged to the group rather than one member of the group.
I was a lottery pool syndicate leader some years ago on my job. I would always make sure I would get all those co-workers names on a sheet of paper with the lottery lottery numbers, so if there were twenty participants in the pool, there also would be twenty lines of lottery numbers. I would make copies of all those who participated in the pool with all the lottery lines of numbers, and everyone who participated in this pool would get a copy. I got no complaints.
You did it the correct way!
I couldn't agree more. One of the many things I don't miss about work since retiring is the lotto addicts hitting me up for donations to their weekly pool. I always hoped they would win millions and quit so the rest of us could work in peace, but as far as I know most of them are still there wasting hundreds of dollars a month on a terrible bet.
I hate these office pools also. My office only does it when it gets in the top 10 or so. Last time they were letting people put in different amounts so I had to explain if someone puts in twice as much, then then have 2 shares. I never participate.
Because it was verbal, the British Columbia pool was probably impromptu with no thought of giving the people copies of their pooled tickets. According to the story all we really know is Hung who bought tickets for the pool cashed a winning ticket, but no proof that ticket was part of the pool. IMO, I'd probably question if the ticket cashed by Hung was part of the pool too, but I would never join a pool without knowing what I was playing so that point is moot.
It's obvious or should be to lottery savvy players with $1/2 billion MM and PB jackpots more and more players will created and/or join "pools". And with only a 4% chance of a ticket winning anything players can easily justify joining pools. Five players contributing $20 can get 50 tickets making it likely they will win something and not very many players have a problem splitting $750 million five ways.
Follow a couple of simple impromptu pool rules, make copies of the pooled tickets and put the names of the players in the pool on the copies and if there is a problem you'll have proof. Avoid pool offers the day of the drawing unless you're positive you'll get a copy of the ticket with the names of all the players.
Don't know why anyone feels the need to mention they don't join pools or how that could possibly be of any help to those that might consider joining one, but that's seems to be S.O.P. for a few posters.
That's pretty funny. I'm curious what the court will decide in this case.
I am waiting for Hung to get back in town. I look forward to hearing what he has to say, in fact I am willing to miss the Premiere of “Avengers Endgame “ to hear he’s story. It better be good, after all that’s quite a sacrifice l am giving up.