Buyer who tossed $1m ticket "Its my money" - May Karma visit soon and often

[Ruby the Liberal]

If I had any thoughts of feeling bad for this woman, they just went out the window with this interview.

Upon being told that the woman who claimed the prize was out of work, her husband was out of work, and she had already spent $190k something odd of the ~$600k post-tax winnings - Ann Curry asked her if she felt bad and would be willing to work to forgive that portion of the amount (split the prize).

Oh hells no. Not this entitled ignoramous. She is suing broke, unemployed people in order to get every last penny. Even Ann Curry seemed taken aback. "Well, you've said your peace" - interesting way to close an interview.

Karma is a bitch, sister - and may it visit you sooner than later.

Greed sucks.

Interview: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/47385011#47385011

So - what outcome would you like to see out of this?

20 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	All money to the woman who threw out the ticket
	1 (5%)
	All money to the woman who retrieved the ticket
	15 (75%)
	They should split it
	1 (5%)
	I like pie
	3 (15%)
	Other outcome?
	0 (0%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[bigwillq]

1. Finders keepers (nt)

[Ruby the Liberal]

2. Thats where I was originally, but

was willing to give the benefit of the doubt when I saw that there was an interview posted on msnbc's site.

Not so much now. I can't believe this woman went on national television and highlighted her greed like this. I am embarrassed for her.

[bigwillq]

3. I havn't heard too much on this story

I am on the side of the person who found the ticket and claimed it.

I feel finders keepers in that case.


Which person did the interview? The one who tossed it or the one who claimed it?

[Ruby the Liberal]

5. The one who tossed it.

When asked if she would be willing to let go the $190k the finders already spent, she said "No - Its my money". She feels she "deserves it". Really, really hard to feel sorry for her...

[jberryhill]

16. Why is it so hard?

She's been told by the woman who has the money "You can't have any, and I won't share".

And you (a) can't understand with her reaction to that, and (b) side with the woman saying "You can't have any and I won't share".

Why do you prefer one greedy person over another?

[Ruby the Liberal]

19. And again, I ask you for verification of that assumption.

One is on the record saying "not a dime" and there was a settlement offer on the table.

To repeat - I am more than willing to revisit my disgust about this, but you have to give me something here. Link, interview, third party - whatever - showing that both are saying the same thing, because that isn't what was stated in this report.

[jberryhill]

30. Res Ipsa Loquitur

Has the woman with the money shared one red cent?

No.

So why would you want, or need, a statement from her?

If I were inclined to give you money, I assure you that nobody, including you, would be able to stop me.

[Ruby the Liberal]

32. She is being sued

and the settlement offer (whoever put it on the table) was rejected.

Can you name *one* attorney on this planet that would advise her to write a check while this is in process in the courts?

[jberryhill]

36. Again you are applying a double standard

Stop bringing in attorneys if you want to talk about karma.

No attorney would advise the woman with the money to give up any.

LIKEWISE, no attorney would advise the woman without the money to say anything other than "it all belongs to me, and I wouldn't share it".

So, in relation to the woman who has the money, you retreat to legalism. But in relation to the woman who does not have the money, you apply karma.

Double standard.

[Ruby the Liberal]

39. LOL - not quite.

I am still waiting on the linkage showing where the woman who found the ticket wasn't negotiating to share the rewards.

If she is also saying "fuck you, its all mine" then I hope karma kicks her ass as well.

[jberryhill]

44. Let me cut to the chase here

Karma does not take sides in an argument over money derived from a state run gambling program.

The moral villain here is the lottery itself.

Both of these women are victims of it. Look at what the lottery has brought. Hatred between two women where there was none before. What is that compared to money?

Is it some shock to encounter greed among people involved with a lottery? The lottery fosters and exploits greed. You are only seeing the fruit of the seed.

The woman with the woman has spent $200,00 of it in a very short period of time. Reflect on what you believe the long term picture is going to be here.

The way of money is to make people thirst for more.

[Dorian Gray]

49. This is

quite profound.

And sad.

[Ruby the Liberal]

66. Absolutely no question about this.

In the past when I have bought lotto tickets, I would joke about paying my "mathematically challenged tax" to the state.

I just hate what greed does to a society - and this woman's interview is Patient Zero in showcasing that.

[liberalhistorian]

52. Why should the finder share?

The other woman tossed out the ticket, threw it away, which means she lost all claim to it. It's not the finder's fault that the tosser didn't check the ticket to make sure of the number, it was the tosser's responsibilty to do it. She didn't do it, she threw it out, so she gave up claim to it. Selfish greedy bitch.

[jberryhill]

53. Once again, the OP is about karma, not law

I'm really kind of surprised at how people confuse legal principles - which are based on fictions designed to get people to stop fighting - with larger moral ones.

You can make a lot of money by taking advantage of the mistakes and errors of others. There is nothing legally wrong with that, and a good deal of our economy is based on it. Too late to return to the parking meter? Pay the tow truck guy. That's how he makes his living. You should have gotten back on time.

One can look at this from a larger perspective. There would be no winning ticket if the first woman had not bought it. There would be no money if the second woman had not retrieved the discarded ticket. From that perspective, the fact of the money being anywhere is the result of the combined and inseparable relation between the actions of the two women. One planted a seed, the other harvested the crop. Without the seed, there is no crop.

The first woman says the machine told her it was not a winner. Maybe it malfunctioned, maybe she made a mistake. Maybe she is a simple old woman who was confused.

I assure you there are many simple old confused women from whom great profits can be made from their mistakes and errors. We don't usually condemn them for it.

Yes, all kinds of arguments can be constructed for the proposition that only one or the other should have the money. We have a legal system which, in these situations, declares one to be the winner and the other to be the loser.

And we've gotten so inured to this kind of thing that here we argue over who is the "rightful" claimant to the prize of a contest which is based on tantalizing low income people with promises of fabulous wealth, and pick sides among the two of them scrambling for it, as if it was a gladiatorial event.

I say, give them knives and an arena. Let them fight to the bloody death. We can watch it in high definition 3D with sound so fine that we can hear the piercing of each layer of skin and tissue, the muffled knick of steel against bone, and the trickling of blood bursting forth from the loser. And the winner will become our moral leader.

You call the first woman "greedy". Well of course she is greedy. She bought a lottery ticket.

Why do you suppose she bought a lottery ticket in the first place? Because she is thinking of funding a project to end hunger somewhere? No. She bought a lottery ticket to win a lot of money.

And it surprises you that the purchaser of a lottery ticket wants money.

Really?

Why not condemn her for buying it in the first place, if you were in need of someone to call names for wanting money.

Again, she is a simple old woman. She may not be very bright. She may have been confused. What she knows is that she held in her hand a winning ticket which she bought, and for whatever reason discarded. She believes she was misled by the machine.

She is bitter about that. But, clearly, stupid old confused women do not have the moral prerogative, in your view and others, to be bitter. Stupid simple old confused women are to accept that they are stupid old confused women, to be called names by clever people on the Internet.

[liberalhistorian]

58. Ummm.........methinks

you are spending way too much time on this and it's curious as to why you really care so much.

[jberryhill]

59. Slow day

But calling some stranger a "bitch" is pretty cool.

Some people call all women "bitches". But I doubt you are like that. You strike me as one of the discerning types, who only calls a woman a bitch when she deserves it.

Some people are the same way with "nigger". It too can only be applied to people of one sort, but educated people do not call all African Americans that. Just the ones who deserve it.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

65. In Minnesota, at least, you have no legal claim on a lottery prize

unless you sign the back of the ticket.

If you don't sign the ticket, it becomes essentially a bearer instrument. Anyone who finds it can claim it if THEY sign the back.

I assume there's something like that in their state, too.

[jberryhill]

69. The op is about Karma, which is bigger than Minnesota

Do you really believe that karma obeys the rules of state laws?

[jberryhill]

4. Ummm....

So, let's see... you are down with the greed of the woman who retrieved the ticket, because she's not giving up a dime either.

I'm not clear on how you are making a moral decision between the two of them, as their positions are identical.

The only distinction is that the one you are calling "greedy" doesn't actually have the money, and you are asking her to make some sort of concession of her case before she sees a penny.

[Ruby the Liberal]

6. I didn't get that.

From what the report said, they weren't able to reach a sharing sentiment. Tells me that someone at least attempted to negotiate that - and from this interview, it wasn't the one who threw the ticket away.

Possession is 9/10 of the law, no?

On edit - my opinion was 'meh' before I saw this interview - while I hope they can come to an agreement to share, it would be delicious if Ms "its my money" walked away without a cent.

[jberryhill]

7. "it would be delicious if Ms "its my money" walked away without a cent"

I'm thinking you have the parties mixed up.

Ms "its my money" doesn't have a cent. So, presumably, the situation has been "delicious" since day one.

"Possession is 9/10 of the law" is a meaningless aphorism. I'm not interested in what you think the legal outcome should be, because it's really not as simple on these facts as everyone believes. However, you are siding with the woman who has the money and refuses to share it, on some moral basis that I cannot fathom.

But, sure, the next time you believe you have a claim to something, go on national TV and say, "Oh, sure, I'd give up my claim" and see how well you do.

You are also saying that it is the fault of the woman who has bupkis that the woman with the money wouldn't share it with her.

[Ruby the Liberal]

13. What can I say - I hate greed with an unparalleled passion.

Where is the assumption coming from that the woman who claimed the winning wasn't willing to share in a settlement?

I would be MORE than willing to reevaluate my negative opinion about this whole affair if I could see that - because that is not the impression I was given from the MSNBC report that led into the interview.

The woman who tossed the ticket on the other hand, replied "no, its my money" twice - once when asked if she would share a portion with the store manager (who was on set sitting next to her) and a second time when asked about working out a settlement with the claimant. It made my skin crawl as only unfettered greed can do.

[jberryhill]

18. Neither of them were willing to share in a settlement

Settlements don't happen when the two people can't agree.

In a situation with this, the person with the money holds the greater degree of negotiation power, since their walkaway position is "I get it all, and you get nothing."

The person who does not have any of the money of course knows that. Consequently, the rational settlement point will still result in the larger share of the money going to the person who had it all as the default position.

But you seem to want the person who did not get any of the money to abandon her claim by making an admission on national television to that effect.

You are, in effect, siding with the person who is the more "greedy" of the two.

[Ruby the Liberal]

20. How do you know this though?

Who put the settlement offer on the table?

[jberryhill]

35. It doesn't matter who put what on the table

I do a lot of settlements. After you've done this for a while, the emotional drama of the participants is pretty much irrelevant to one's ability to accurately predict the outcome.

But there is also something you are skipping over. No settlement is required for the woman with the money to share it.

Again, if you want to go on a karma/moral basis, I don't see how you are ending up where you are.

You are saying that the woman on the show should express a purely donative intent - ie "If you had the money, would you share it". There is no exchange involved there.

But, in relation to the woman who actually has the money, your position is different. You are saying that she should not give up anything unless she gets something in return - to wit, an agreement by the recipient to abandon her claim.

No settlement of any kind is required for the woman with the money to share some. Right now and today, and asking nothing in return.

So here is where you stand in relation to these two women:

1. woman with the money - should not give up a cent without getting something in return.

2. Woman without the money - If she gets it, she should freely give up some for nothing.

Your stance is that the woman with the money has a lower moral burden.

[Ruby the Liberal]

40. I will double down on part of that

and it isn't the moral burden.

What proof is there that the ticket she picked out of the trash belonged to the woman who is claiming it? What proof is there that the claimant refused to settle equitably?

Lots of assumptions being made here that simply do not have any verification.

[jberryhill]

41. Well there you go again...

"Proof"... "belonging"... I try not to mix legality and morality.

We can take as given that it was originally her ticket, because the case wasn't decided on lack of proof of those facts, but on whether she had intended to abandon a winning ticket.

Leaving aside legal concepts like property and abandonment, the bottom line is that the winning ticket would not have been in the bin for the second woman to redeem had it not been put there by the first woman who was mistaken.

The "greed" you are perceiving is simply bitterness at the feeling that her mistake has been exploited. If you accidentally discarded a birthday card with a $100 dollar bill in it, and I found it, I would return it to you. But if I was a mind not to do that, and you claimed it all, there would still be nothing to stop me from giving you $10, even if you continued to claim it all.

Law doesn't provide "right" answers. It provides more or less predictable ones, in a ritual social exercise which keeps people from beating and killing one another.

It is manifestly indisputable that the woman with the money has given nothing to the woman who put the ticket in the bin. But you call the woman who put the ticket in the bin "greedy" because you have heard her words, despite the fact that actions of the woman with the money speak as clearly.

[Ruby the Liberal]

67. I would be grateful to be $10 ahead.

Then again, I don't get worked up about money - why this video "display" was so offensive to me.

My house was broken into once many years ago. Back before they had 1,000 possible combination garage door openers. Perps cruised the neighborhood and clicked until one opened, then pulled in, shut the door behind them and took their sweet time. They left empty soda cans that they helped themselves to and took apart the entertainment center, neatly laying the parts by the fireplace.

My (now ex) husband was freaked out and didn't sleep well for weeks. I was relieved that they didn't do any damage and went about filing the insurance claim and scheduling for an alarm to be installed. No joy in replacement items - he wanted HIS stuff back.

It was an interesting dynamic, but I am a minimalist and never got attached to "stuff" in my life. (Ironically, I would do grave and physical harm to anyone who attempted to harm my pets - and not think twice about it. We are all wired differently.)

That mentality happens when you live in hurricane country and have to evacuate multiple times with the knowledge that you may be coming back to rubble. You would be amazed at the things you put priority on, and those you are willing to walk from.

So everyone is different, and those who go overboard about money and things just don't gel with me. Add in the adamant "me! mine!" and you lose me completely. As this woman and her attitude did. As Libertarians do with their unrealistic ideals that also don't take into account the unabashed greed that their model seems to not want to accommodate.

Way too much Socialist blood in these veins perhaps. No quarter for greed.

[KansDem]

8. I don't understand what "the bin" is all about

The first woman scanned her ticket and claims the scanner read it as "Sorry. Not a winner," so she throws it into this bin. It's retrieved by the second woman who discovered it was a winner, but she wasn't suppose to take anything out of the bin?

What's "the bin" used for if it's not for trash?

[jberryhill]

11. Non-winning scratch off tickets can be entered in a secondary lottery

That's why the store had a designated bin for them. They mention that in the beginning of the report.

You will further note that the woman who retrieved the ticket appears with the woman who runs the store.

If you go from the position that the tickets in the bin were not trash, but were surrendered to the possession of the store then, sure, the store can grant its permission to anyone else they choose to take the ticket out.

From that, you should be able to piece together the backstory as to why the store is supporting one of the claims and not the other.

[Politicalboi]

12. The clerks let her take them

And Sharon should bring witnesses who can vouch that it IS a trash can. Find customers who go there a lot, and ask them if they have seen or thrown trash in the "ticket bin". If the "ticket bin" has trash in it like food and drinks, I doubt the winning ticket would have been found at all.

[HopeHoops]

9. Possession is all that matters with an unsigned ticket.

Anyone who gets a major haul should immediately fill out the back and sign it. That's the only proof you have that it was ever in your possession. Then if it is lost/found or stolen, you can contest the other person's claim. She blew it.

[Dawson Leery]

21. Agreed.

[greytdemocrat]

56. Yep

Lotto tickets are "Bearer Instruments" if I remember.

[Politicalboi]

10. What a POS

Couldn't she SEE it was a winner from the ticket itself without the machine. What a dope. IMO the woman who found the ticket should get the money. But maybe the judge should have split it. Good clerk Lisa should have let Sharon keep the ticket. I'm sure Sharon would have given her some money. If I even question the ticket I would have had the clerk look at it if I trusted them. And how does the judge know for sure that was the woman's ticket. Could there have been another ticket that wasn't a winner, and that ticket belonged to the greedy fuck. Maybe the winning ticket was someone else's that got thrown away. How can the judge be sure? How many tickets were in the trash can? Oh I mean the "ticket bin" LOL!

[Ruby the Liberal]

15. I am not clear on the legal aspects of this - like how do they know

she was even the original ticket holder? That was never addressed.

It was her smarmy attitude about this that stuck in my crawl. No quarter for people like that.

[Politicalboi]

27. I'm sure there is a way

To track these tickets. Where and when they were bought. Did the greedy woman buy the ticket there? I don't know. But I'm wondering after looking at the video again, it looks like Sharon picked it out of a container in front of the counter. Did the clerks hand over the bin, or was that bin there like a trash can? The greedy woman I guess couldn't see she matched the number 7. And that there is a re-entry game. People like her shouldn't really play if they can't even understand a matching number and the prize. She NEVER would have anything if the ticket was never found. She should at least allow the woman who did the work for her get her debts paid off.

[DiverDave]

14. The machine was in error

she thought it was worthless.
How does she NOT deserve her money?
She bought the ticket with HER money.

How could the fair thing be to give it to anyone else?
The state (in essence) told her it was worthless.
She deserves ALL of her money (maybe a reward for finding out it WASNT worthless)
But not half of it.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

17. then she deserves it from the state, if anywhere

it was a scratch-off ticket, IIRC; why the hell didn't she just LOOK at it to see if she had won? is negligence now an excuse? or maybe stupidity is?

sP

[DiverDave]

23. Since she bought it

and the MACHINE said it was worthless, she should keep it?

I'm thinking the lottery company should pay for the screwed up machine.
If it would have been accurate she wouldnt have tossed it.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

25. she should sure as hell look at the scratch off

before trusting a machine...

but, yes, i agree the lottery commission/state (whomever is responsible for the machine) should have to pay it.

sP

[laundry_queen]

42. I agree.

This is a lotteries issue. Those assholes get away with this crap a lot. Their machines reading tickets wrongly, they print tickets wrongly... recently one lady LOOKED at her scratch tickets, SAW that she had won but when she went to the machine and scan it, the machine said she wasn't a winner. When she inquired, the lottery corp said, oh, sorry, too bad so sad, that was a misprint, it happens from time to time. W_T_F? How can they get away with that. I'm betting if the machine said she was a winner if her scratch ticket didn't show it, they wouldn't be giving her the money THEN either. Scammers.

[LadyHawkAZ]

28. She bought the ticket with her money

and then THREW IT AWAY, which is of course her choice since the ticket was her property. Once her item was thrown into a public trash can of her own free will, it ceased to be her property. Hell, they don't even require warrants to search trash you throw into a public disposal. The state told her it was worthless? The state told me once that I had an arrest warrant out for me when I actually had no such thing. With money at stake, you check it yourself.

She wasn't interested in the ticket until someone else took it and cashed it. She shouldn't get a penny.

[Politicalboi]

31. I question that

Did you see the video? The ticket has a number 7 in her row, and matched a number 7 for 1 million dollars. Who needs a machine to see it was a winner? Any child could point that out. I at one time was using one of those machines, and if you don't scratch off the right bar code numbers, it won't show anything. Maybe that is what she did. She can't play too much if she can't see the game requires you to match numbers, and number 7 was a match. How can she read the machine, when she can't even read the ticket. She should at least allow the woman who claimed it to keep what she has already spent for finding it for her.

[dionysus]

34. that's right. if you're too dumb to understand a lottery ticket game...

[jberryhill]

55. Because, clearly, the lottery is designed and marketed to geniuses

If you actually understand scratch off lottery tickets, then you don't buy them.

The spectacle of DUers engaging in a beat down of a collection of marginally intelligent rural women fighting over a lottery ticket is, however, something else entirely.

Give these women knives and we can wager on the outcome. That's more sophisticated entertainment than a scratch off lottery any day!

I do so enjoy watching the dogs fighting for scraps from the table. These women would just as soon scratch each others eyelids off. Now there's a scratch off lottery!

[dionysus]

64. they should split the money and be done with it, otherwise, 2 lawyers will end up with it all

[Politicalboi]

22. I watched again

First off what part of number 7 and the 7 on the ticket that said 1 Million Dollars doesn't this woman get????? If she can't see an obvious win, she shouldn't play at ALL. And the woman reaching in the "ticket bin" was on the other side of the counter. Wasn't the "ticket bin" behind the counter in the video? If the video is of the woman reaching in the "ticket bin", then the clerks must have given it to her. Or it was trash, and should have been up for grabs.

[jberryhill]

57. Older confused women are pains in the ass, aren't they?

You're right. She's not too smart. She probably even has bad eyesight.

It's so annoying when unintelligent old women get confused and then get all upset about it. They really piss me off.

[WI_DEM]

24. well dingbat you shouldn't have thrown it out!!!!

[bbgrunt]

26. moot points. Now it is all going to lawyers.

[jberryhill]

37. You say that like it's a bad thing

Clearly these women have both demonstrated that neither of them deserves it, and all of the money should go to persons more honorable.

Hence, it is as it should be.

[Courtesy Flush]

60. Neither of them?

Did I miss something? The woman who found the ticket. What did she do?

[jberryhill]

61. The complete list?

I'm sure she's done any number of things in her life for which she should be ashamed.

[jp11]

29. It should go to the Store Owner and the woman who claimed it.

The ticket's purchaser discarded it or threw it away. The 'ticket bin' is just a garbage for lazy people who'd toss their tickets on the floor or outside the store on the ground. It isn't any kind of vault or bank to hold your ticket for you to come back.

The store owner had the greatest 'claim' on that ticket as it was in her trashcan and had not been discarded by her. Until she puts it in the dumpster or on the curb she hasn't discarded it. The ticket's purchaser discarded it by tossing it in the bin.

I feel bad for the woman who claimed it but she really doesn't have any claim to a ticket she fished out of a garbage at someone's store when it hadn't been discarded by the owner. If she fished it out of a dumpster then it would have been hers but she didn't. The store's owner can't be expected to fish through all her trash cans and pickup the tickets some lazy people toss outside despite all the trash bins she puts out for them to not litter so she can see if any of them are winners.

It is likely that the owner wouldn't have checked any of the discarded tickets and they'd have gone into the trash with no one claiming it.

I'd like to see a split between the store owner and the ticket's claimant with the purchaser getting nothing. She trusted a machine and I believe scanned the wrong ticket or didn't scan it at all, then she discarded it. Thinking it won or not she tossed it away and on leaving it was no longer hers period.

[dionysus]

33. has anybody asked.. didnt she look at the friggin thing to see if she won?

[Politicalboi]

38. LOL!

I know. It's not like these new slot machines in casino's that you have to read directions to lose your money. LOL! It's right there in front of her. 7 matches the 7 with the Million Dollars, what more does anyone need. Especially "Lucky Seven" How do you miss that?

[ScreamingMeemie]

46. A lot of people don't have time to "waste" (lol) scratching the entire ticket.

they will scratch off the bar code and scan it. The scanner does not clear right away, and can be touchy. She wasn't paying attention. It's amazing, the things I have learned since working at a convenience store. People are in such a hurry they can't even scratch off 5 numbers to match and the 20 for the prizes.

[jberryhill]

62. The symbols on the card are not authoritative

Actually, if you read ALL of the terms and conditions, the authoritative definition of a winning ticket is one where the serial number matches the predetermined serial number of a winning ticket.

Whether the other symbols on the ticket match anything is irrelevant to the rules of the contest defining a winning ticket.

The people only scanning the bar code and not messing with the rest of the ticket are playing by the actual rules of the game.

[ScreamingMeemie]

63. The people scanning the bar code are typically lazy goofs in my store.

But they are lovable lazy goofs. To me, if I didn't want to play the game, I wouldn't buy the ticket. The smart ones are truly the ones who do both.

[CBHagman]

43. Having viewed the video...

...I can't help but wonder whether everything will get eaten up in legal fees, and whether the woman who claimed the money will wind up worse off than when she started.

[ScreamingMeemie]

45. I am a lowly convenience store employee. If you don't sign the ticket (which I encourage you

to do the moment you buy it) it's not yours anymore if you threw it away. Even if you f-ed up and saw someone else's "Sorry, not a winner" that wasn't cleared off when you thought (those scanners are touchy) you scanned yours. It's that simple. We have a woman who comes in just about every night and takes all the scratch offs out of the garbage. It's legal. If she wins anything (she doesn't because my customers are smart and scan them before they toss them) it's hers.

[uncle ray]

47. she's right. i'd totally give her the dollar back that she's entitled to.

[jmowreader]

48. Lottery tickets are BEARER INSTRUMENTS, lady...

What that means, since you can't quite wrap your head around it, is the person who shows up at the lottery office with the ticket, gets the money.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

51. apparently, at least one idiot judge disagreed

so that is why this whole dust-up is going on.

i agree with you, entirely.

sP

[Chan790]

50. This is an easy one, maybe not a fair one, but an easy one nevertheless.

Once she discarded the ticket (not lost, discarded) for any reason in a public place, it becomes abandoned property and all claims thereof to it are surrendered with the abandonment. It's exactly the same if you intentionally empty your wallet on the sidewalk. It's not your money anymore. She might have a suit against the lottery or the reader-manufacturer if it actually malfunctioned (Probably not, they have good lawyers and indemnity is fairly standard in the terms of such things.) but she has none against the claimant.

In this case, the nature of the bin matters but only against her, not in her favor. If the bin is trash, then the ticket is free to any claimant who retrieves it. If the bin is for a secondary drawing run by the store, the ticket is property of the store because putting it in the bin is a transfer of possession...it's no longer your ticket, it's an entry on your behalf in their drawing. They can do with all non-winning entries whatever they'd like. If the bin is for a secondary drawing run by the state lottery commission, the ticket is unclaimable by any party as the ticket reverts to the property of the lottery as an agency (same as if it had gone unclaimed entirely, though it remains an entry in the secondary drawing) and a subsequent claim by any party not authorized to claim the winnings of the ticket on the behalf of the lottery (N.B. There is typically no such party. It's not in the lottery's interest to establish one.) is an act of theft.

Further, her claim to the ticket is doubly-moot as she cannot legally prove previous possession; it's the same as finding $20 in the trash-can. It belongs to the finder...now someone else or several someones may say "Hey! That's my $20." but as long as there is no incontrovertible way to prove who had previous possession, you're shit outta luck. This can be remedied by signing the back of the ticket or writing your name on your money...though writing your name on your money can be interpreted as "defacing currency" which is illegal.

It belongs to whomever has possession at time of redemption. She'd have a legitimate case if she'd lost the ticket or it were stolen from her. (This happened several years ago in CT. A woman bought a lotto ticket every drawing, the same numbers for years...when she went to the store to tell them she won (she was friends with the owner or so she thought), the clerk/owner stole the ticket, endorsed it with his own name and cashed the ticket himself. She got her money, he went to jail.) Likewise she'd have a case if she had signed the ticket thus asserting her intention to claim it if it were a winner and clearly conveying ownership.

The take-away here: Always sign your lottery tickets. Even the losers. Don't trust the machine because it's not always right...in fact there's typically a sticker to that effect on the front of the machine.

[jberryhill]

54. You are missing two things

The OP is about karma, not law. Don't confuse them or you will go mad.

Since you know a thing or two about abandonment, then you must also know that abandonment requires intent. Intent can often be inferred from circumstances, and in normal "trash out out by the curb" cases, it is fairly simple. The claim here is that there was no intent to abandon a winning ticket. She is claiming either mistake or otherwise lack of intent to abandon a "winning ticket". So, yes, people with a half-baked understanding of abandonment conclude as you have.

But, again, the OP is not about law, but abut morality. The OP condemns a woman as "greedy" because she is bitter at someone else's refusal to share in a fortune which would not have existed but for the combined actions of both women. Legalisms do not address the psychology of that.

[Ruby the Liberal]

68. No, the OP is about both.

The woman gave up her legal right to the claim when she threw the ticket out. That was my position when I first heard of the event.

The moral judgment is 100% rooted in the interview given as an aftermath to this. Had she sat there humbly and said "yes, our attorneys are working out a settlement", this thread wouldn't even exist. That isn't what happened. Not once but twice, the entitled shrew shreiked "mine! mine!" and indicated an unwillingness to even consider some kind of settlement when pressed on it by Curry.

You like conflating the two, trying to portray me as someone who sees things through emotion rather than reason. Lovely stuff. To reinforce that, you repeatedly assert that the woman who claimed the ticket is refusing to talk about settlements - and at least 6 requests to back that assertion have been ignored, you just want that un-cited fact to stand AS fact as it fits the narrative you are attempting to spin.

Yes, lovely stuff.

[jberryhill]

70. Okay so...

Can you point me to the court decision which held that intent is not an element of abandonment? You say "she gave up her legal right". Please cite to the relevant precedent in that jurisdiction.

Second, you really miss the point about settlement entirely. Number one - no settlement of any kind is required for the woman with the money to give some to the woman without the money. None.

Secondly, when a suit does not settle, it is because BOTH PARTIES could not come to an agreement. A settlement is not something anyone does by themselves.

The woman with the money has decided to keep every dime to herself. You back up her decision with a conclusory statement of what you belief the controlling law to be on abandonment and intent in that state, and you blame the woman who does not have the money for the evident unwillingness to share on the part of the woman who has it.

At all points, you find fault with the woman who does not have the money, and justify the one who does. This does not strike you as out of character?

[Ruby the Liberal]

71. I am not justifying anything

If someone throws something in the trash, they have disposed of it. Sorry - I never sat for the bar, but if the media/LEO can legally pick through the trash, Imma go with this tidbit not needing years of precedence and case law.

Why you are so intent about (again) adding "facts" that are not documented is simply beyond me, unless the game is to argue for the sake of arguing. I know yall are trained to do that - but isn't it expected to at least back up these "facts" being entered (and asked to be accepted as such) into the conversation?

Here is what we know about this case:

1. Woman #1 scans ticket, machine says 'not a winner', woman throws ticket into the used ticket bin.

2. Woman #2 picks through used ticket bin and retrieves used tickets, one of which is a winner.

3. Settlement talks commence - and no agreement is made.

4. Judge rules in favor of woman #1 who threw away the ticket

5. Woman #2 has already spent $190k of the winnings paying off bills and who knows what else - and is on the record as unemployed, and does not have that money in cash any longer.

6. NBC Anchor asks woman #1 if she would be willing to work with woman #2 on the money already spent

7. Woman #1 says no - that it is "her money" and she will continue the lawsuit to get every dime she feels she is owed.


Now - you want to make these assumptions about woman #2, her motives, her offers (or lack thereof), and her positions.

Line items 1-7 have been documented in the NBC video in the OP. The shit you keep wanting to add in here (to impune motives on woman #2 as well as on *me* for even bringing this up) are not listed in items 1-7 and a google shows that they don't seem to be readily available from any other source as well.

Thought you guys were supposed to argue cases from items in evidence, but in this thread, all you keep doing is making assumptions as if they were facts.

Why?

[proud2BlibKansan]

72. Was her name on the ticket?

This is what I don't get. How do they know this is her ticket?

[Ruby the Liberal]

74. Dunno - been looking for the answer to that myself.

How do they know who originally bought which ticket in the second chance bin?

[proud2BlibKansan]

75. Here where I live, you put your name on the back and you mail it in

You don't put it in a bin at the store. But maybe that's how they do it in Arkansas.

[Lemmy]

73. This is going to be an unpopular opinion here

I haven't the slightest clue why the majority of you are for the woman who found the ticket as opposed to the woman who actually bought the ticket.

The buyer of the ticket is the owner of the ticket, period. It doesn't matter if she lost it, or threw it out, or whatever happened to it. She paid for it, it's hers. She didn't willingly SELL it to someone, she INADVERTENTLY threw it away on the FALSE belief that it was not worth anything, thanks to a faulty machine.

Could she have actually checked the ticket manually? Sure. This doesn't all of a sudden make the ticket any less her property.

I also want to comment on the people here complaining about the owner of the lottery ticket being "greedy", "selfish", etc. Who here among us can HONESTLY say we would not be doing the EXACT SAME THING if we were put in the same situation? What if YOU accidentally threw out a winning lottery ticket? Come on, people.

Not to mention that the woman who found the ticket has already SPENT A THIRD OF IT. Why are we not calling her greedy/stupid/irresponsible? How can someone spend 200 thousand dollars of a 600 thousand dollar windfall, just like that? That's pretty poor financial planning, frankly. Invested wisely, that 600 thousand can easily generate 20 grand a year in income for this jobless, down on her luck woman, and she already wasted a third of her illegitimately new found wealth on God knows what.

[proud2BlibKansan]

76. If it was me, I'd let her keep what she has already spent.

I wouldn't be going after her for what is no longer there.

But that's just me I guess.