woman can’t keep $4.15M winning lottery ticket
A Pennsylvania woman can’t keep a $4.15 million winning lottery ticket because she employed a ruse to get it from the supermarket where she worked, a state Superior Court panel ruled Tuesday.Get more news about
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Instead, the judges found the Acme store that Beverlie Seltzer worked for is the rightful owner of that ticket and the riches it entails.
The case hinges on how the Acme store in Doylestown handles Pennsylvania lottery tickets that are printed by mistake from the automated terminal the state Lottery Commission placed in the business, Judge Mary Jane Bowes noted in the state court’s opinion.Acme must pay the lottery commission for each mistake ticket, but it also can keep the winnings from any of those tickets that pays off, the judge noted.
The $4.15 million mistake Match 6 ticket at issue in the Seltzer case was in a pile with other mistake tickets when Seltzer reported for work at the store’s customer service desk on March 21, 2019. Bowes said that, after the Match 6 drawing that night, Seltzer discovered the winning ticket as she processed the mistake pile.
Seltzer took $10 from her purse and rang up a transaction to buy the ticket instead of following store procedure and leaving the ticket for Acme to claim, the state judge wrote. Bowes said Acme officials discovered the ruse by viewing security camera footage.
Seltzer, who tried to claim the winnings, appealed to the Superior Court after a Bucks County judge ruled that Acme is the true owner of that winning ticket.
Bowes agreed with the county judge’s finding that “Acme became the owner of the mistake ticket as soon as it was printed.” She found Seltzer’s arguments to the contrary to be “nonsensical musings” that are “devoid of merit.”
“When Ms. Seltzer in this instance deviated from the Acme procedures that she usually followed, she acted surreptitiously and was not forthcoming about the circumstances of the purchase,” Bowes wrote. “Even viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Ms. Seltzer, no reasonable fact-finder could conclude that Ms. Seltzer acted with the good faith belief that she was permitted by law or by Acme’s policies to give Acme $10 in exchange for $4,150,000. "
