Is another person's trash no longer your treasure?

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Woman who lost Ark. lotto ticket entitled to $1M

SEARCY, Ark. (AP) — An Arkansas woman who cashed a $1 million lottery ticket may have to give up the winnings to a woman who threw away the ticket after she bought it, according to a judge's ruling Tuesday.

The judge decided that Sharon Duncan was entitled to the prize money, not Sharon Jones, who claimed the prize money after she took the ticket from a trash can of discarded lottery tickets at a convenience store in Beebe, a city about 40 miles northeast of Little Rock.

Jones' attorney, James Simpson, said he plans to appeal. Jones had testified that she already spent some of the money on a new truck and cash gifts to her children.

Simpson noted that Duncan testified she threw away the ticket after the read-out on a ticket scanner said, "Sorry. Not a winner." The attorney argued that people shouldn't be allowed to throw items away and then say, "'ooh, I want to un-abandon it.'"

"We'd have garage-sale law all over the place," he said. "It became trash when someone threw it away."

http://news.yahoo.com/woman-lost-ark-lotto-ticket-entitled-1m-001711454.html

this is an interesting dilemma, because normally if you throw something away, you give up possession of it. here, it appears the ticket scanner incorrectly said she was not a winner.

what do you think?

computer error - both get the money, or at a minimum the lady who found the ticket doesn't have to repay what she spent?

human error - testimony is bogus, does the tosser get anything? (tosser is an ode to our british poster, not that he is a tosser, but that he would find it humorous. good lord, only meter maids could take that long to explain a simple joke)
 
As a general rule, id agree that once its thrown out, its trash, but with lottery tickets its a different ballgame. A common fraud method is for low level cashiers and store clerks is to do the same thing fo customers (I.E. say the tic,ket didn't win) and then claim the prize themselves.
 
That's retarded, I hope the woman smart enough to hang onto the ticket gets to keep her money. If the state wants to play gullible, then it can cough up another $1 Million to subsidize its gullibility.
 
That's retarded, I hope the woman smart enough to hang onto the ticket gets to keep her money. If the state wants to play gullible, then it can cough up another $1 Million to subsidize its gullibility.

UHHHHHH; she threw it away and another woman picked it out of the discard pile.
 
if the judges ruling holds, I wonder how that will hold up for evidence seized from the trash. can we then 'want it back' and get the evidence suppressed?
 
As a general rule, id agree that once its thrown out, its trash, but with lottery tickets its a different ballgame. A common fraud method is for low level cashiers and store clerks is to do the same thing fo customers (I.E. say the tic,ket didn't win) and then claim the prize themselves.

this is my opinion as well and one i believe will be upheld, but, it will upheld narrowly to this specific scenario, not just simply throwing something out that you know what you're throwing out....not something you were defrauded or mislead into throwing out.
 
I thin the person that threw out the ticket loses to the person who found it, but has an excellent claim against the state or whomever is in charge of the read out scanner.
 
I thin the person that threw out the ticket loses to the person who found it, but has an excellent claim against the state or whomever is in charge of the read out scanner.

i'm not so sure if it was fraud...for example if you buy a stolen car and didn't realize the car was stolen, you do not have a right to keep the car if the true owner or police find it.
 
i'm not so sure if it was fraud...for example if you buy a stolen car and didn't realize the car was stolen, you do not have a right to keep the car if the true owner or police find it.


I don't see how this is at all responsive to my post.
 
I thin the person that threw out the ticket loses to the person who found it, but has an excellent claim against the state or whomever is in charge of the read out scanner.

Agreed. Possession is 9/10 of the law. The woman who threw it out could sue the Lottery for a faulty reader or sue the store owner for potential fraud.

But the woman who picked the ticket out of the trash should get to keep the million.
 
Agreed. Possession is 9/10 of the law. The woman who threw it out could sue the Lottery for a faulty reader or sue the store owner for potential fraud.

But the woman who picked the ticket out of the trash should get to keep the million.

you're misusing the phrase. it has to do with land ownership in europe a few hundred years ago....iirc. simple possession, under our current law, does not guarantee you an absolute right to ownership.
 
you're misusing the phrase. it has to do with land ownership in europe a few hundred years ago....iirc. simple possession, under our current law, does not guarantee you an absolute right to ownership.

well then, it is a good thing I didn't say it guaranteed anyone an absolute right to ownership. Whew... dodged that bullet.
 
i'm not surprised. what don't you understand?


Uh, all of it. I didn't say shit about fraud. And in this case nobody bought stolen property. And nobody stole property.

A person abandoned property in reliance upon false information regarding its value. The person who found the abandoned property should get to keep it. The person that abandoned the property in reliance upon false information regarding its value probably has quite a good claim against the entity that provided that false information.
 
this is my opinion as well and one i believe will be upheld, but, it will upheld narrowly to this specific scenario, not just simply throwing something out that you know what you're throwing out....not something you were defrauded or mislead into throwing out.

Exactly. It's a specific situation and general precedent should not be made by this case.
 
Uh, all of it. I didn't say shit about fraud. And in this case nobody bought stolen property. And nobody stole property.

A person abandoned property in reliance upon false information regarding its value. The person who found the abandoned property should get to keep it. The person that abandoned the property in reliance upon false information regarding its value probably has quite a good claim against the entity that provided that false information.

you're confusing legal principles. especially, regarding lottery tickets.
 
Agreed. Possession is 9/10 of the law. The woman who threw it out could sue the Lottery for a faulty reader or sue the store owner for potential fraud.

But the woman who picked the ticket out of the trash should get to keep the million.

If I go to a yard sale and buy a Van Gough; does this mean that the seller can now demand the return of the painting.
 
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