Two couples are fighting in court over ownership of a Massachusetts Lottery scratch ticket worth $4 million.
According to testimony in the civil jury trial in Barnstable Superior Court, which got under way Monday, Julie Prive was a clerk at a Tedeschi's market in Falmouth in 2002, and began regularly collecting discarded losing scratch tickets. She entered these tickets in the Clean Fun Sweepstakes, the lottery's second-chance game designed to keep used tickets from becoming litter.
Prive said that while double-checking the used tickets, she found a winner in a "$600 Million Spectacular" ticket worth $4 million.
However Raymond MacDonald and Monica Hertz claim the winning ticket - No. 93 in the book of $10 tickets - was among the 45 tickets they bought that day, May 17. The pair said they bought 12 tickets - Nos. 99 to 88 - from the ticket book containing the winning ticket, according to their lawyer, Leigh-Ann Patterson, in her opening statement.
MacDonald, a retiree from Falmouth, testified that he plays the lottery two or three times a day, spending upwards of $100. He won a $2 million jackpot from a scratch ticket in 1997.
According to his attorneys, MacDonald has a distinctive "scratch signature" that would make it possible to show he once had held the ticket.
However attorneys for Julie Prive and her husband, David, said ownership of the ticket is not clear-cut.
"The plaintiffs are here for one reason - they happened to be there at approximately the time the ticket was sold," attorney Jeremy Carter said.
Although the Prives told the lottery commission that Julie had found the ticket, she told a Cape Cod Times reporter at the time that she bought the ticket after she got off work.
While MacDonald and Hertz have tried to stop the Prives from collecting their winnings - $200,000 a year for 20 years before taxes - lottery commission officials said they will continue to pay the couple until told to do otherwise by the court, according to court documents. So far, the Prives have been paid $600,000 before taxes.
It is uncertain whether Hertz will testify, as the was in Falmouth Hospital on Monday being treated for blood clots after a recent leg injury.
I scooped up hundreds of losing tickets from the trash for the same 2nd chance drawings and found several discarded winners myself in the $1 - 10 range and a few completely unscratched tickets, so I know it happens.
In this case, I hope it's a case of finder's keepers. Once you toss a ticket in the trash, it's fair game for anyone to take out, look at and keep like anything else you toss in the trash. If you are scratching tickets so fast and furious that you can't be bothered to examine them to see if they are winners, then it's your tough luck you tossed a winner away. But to ease the pain of people who tossed away a fortune and avoid pesky lawsuits like this, I would recommend that you not tell anyone you got the ticket from the trash.
Probably here the legal question would be if either Mr. MacDonald and/or Ms. Hertz ever had actual possession of the ticket. If Mr. MacDonald had possession and threw it away then the ticket is Ms. Prive's - period. If Mr. MacDonald bought the ticket as part of a block (how does he know?) and never received it then he didn't count the tickets when he purchased them. And it would have been difficult for Ms. Prive to determine that that was the winning ticket on the spot.
Every lottery in the country has it somewhere in their rules that a ticket is a bearer instrument - the holder of the ticket is the winner.
It seems strange that the couple who allegedly bought the ticket had no idea they just scratched a $4 million winner, yet they know the "book position" numbers of all the tickets they bought?
I really don't think they or whoever bought it can claim they had possession of it - would you go to the bathroom or buy a Coke with $4 million sitting in the pile of losers? I assume they had left the store when she gathered up the losing tickets.
How do these people win these big prizes twice when this post site cant hit it once? Id love to know the odds of winning two million dollar scratch offs in a lifetime, even playing a couple hundred a day. Unreal.
Quote:Originally posted by qutgnt on August 11, 2004
How do these people win these big prizes twice when this post site cant hit it once? Id love to know the odds of winning two million dollar scratch offs in a lifetime, even playing a couple hundred a day. Unreal.
Thats what I am sayin..I can't even win more then $5..after playing about 10 times so far...
I scooped up hundreds of losing tickets from the trash for the same 2nd chance drawings and found several discarded winners myself in the $1 - 10 range and a few completely unscratched tickets, so I know it happens.
In this case, I hope it's a case of finder's keepers. Once you toss a ticket in the trash, it's fair game for anyone to take out, look at and keep like anything else you toss in the trash. If you are scratching tickets so fast and furious that you can't be bothered to examine them to see if they are winners, then it's your tough luck you tossed a winner away. But to ease the pain of people who tossed away a fortune and avoid pesky lawsuits like this, I would recommend that you not tell anyone you got the ticket from the trash.
Probably here the legal question would be if either Mr. MacDonald and/or Ms. Hertz ever had actual possession of the ticket. If Mr. MacDonald had possession and threw it away then the ticket is Ms. Prive's - period. If Mr. MacDonald bought the ticket as part of a block (how does he know?) and never received it then he didn't count the tickets when he purchased them. And it would have been difficult for Ms. Prive to determine that that was the winning ticket on the spot.
Every lottery in the country has it somewhere in their rules that a ticket is a bearer instrument - the holder of the ticket is the winner.
gl
john
It Hertz! Even if there was no dispute, the prize Hertz because it's annuity-only.
It seems strange that the couple who allegedly bought the ticket had no idea they just scratched a $4 million winner, yet they know the "book position" numbers of all the tickets they bought?
I really don't think they or whoever bought it can claim they had possession of it - would you go to the bathroom or buy a Coke with $4 million sitting in the pile of losers? I assume they had left the store when she gathered up the losing tickets.
How do these people win these big prizes twice when this post site cant hit it once? Id love to know the odds of winning two million dollar scratch offs in a lifetime, even playing a couple hundred a day. Unreal.
Tough luck, old man. You gave away the ticket and it now belongs to Mrs. Prive and her family. Now go cry in your Metamucil, you greedy old bastard.
It's not actually a $4 million ticket, since it's annuity-only.
Thats what I am sayin..I can't even win more then $5..after playing about 10 times so far...
They don't have a leg to stand on and the court should not change the set rules because people were stupid enough to get rid of a winning ticket!
Finders Keepers...losers weepers