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)
