Posted on 05/23/2010 11:50:14 AM PDT by Libloather
Woman sues after 'winning' $500,000 scratch-off ticket is called misprint
By Anika Myers Palm, Orlando Sentinel
May 20, 2010
An Ocala woman wants a jury to decide if the Florida Lottery was wrong to dismiss her winning ticket as a misprint.
Ann Marie Curcio claims the Lottery is in breach of its contract with buyers because it will not pay $500,000 she says she is owed for her winning Gold Rush ticket.
"We don't believe that there is a sufficient excuse for the Lottery not to pay it. . . . There are no disclaimers on the ticket," said Larry Walters, Curcio's Orlando-based attorney.
Curcio bought her $20 ticket on May 13, 2007. The winning numbers 28, 1, 12, 32 and 2 appeared on the ticket.
She scratched her ticket to find the number 1, which matched the one of the five winning numbers and had $500,000 printed beneath it as the payout.
When Curcio tried to redeem her ticket at the Florida Lottery's Tallahassee offices the following day, she was told that the ticket was misprinted.
Lottery officials say they need to inspect Curcio's ticket to determine whether it is a winning ticket — and that Curcio has not filed a winner's claim form.
(Excerpt) Read more at articles.orlandosentinel.com ...
You can do anything with digital systems!
If no evidence of tampering is found then they owe her the cash.
As long as she didn’t tinker around with the ticket herself, the money will go to her. Any jury will award it.
Sounds like the Florida Lottery should hire Bernie Madoff as their director.
As long as she didn’t tinker around with the ticket herself, the money will go to her. Any jury will award it.
Especially if there is nothing on the ticket that voids it in the case of machine error, as it says above, no disclaimer. That is totally unfair to the ticket-buyer, who simply cannot be held liable for oopsies on the part of the lottery itself. If they cannot prove she cheated (and it sure sounds like she didn't), I'd award her the dough.
“then they owe her the cash.”
I would hope so. I can’t imagine a private company getting away with this. If FL were allowed to use the “misprint” excuse, then all jackpot lottery winnings would have no value as the state could flip any “winning” ticket into a dud by claiming it was a misprint.
Imagine a life insurance company “Oh, we’re sorry, Mrs. Smith. I realize you thought you had a $5 million policy on Mr. Smith and we’re deeply saddened he died. But that was a misprint, so we owe you nothing. The good news is that Social Security will pay you $1500 monthly in survivor benefits...Have a good life and please accept our most sincere condolences.”
Ubama's friend in the State House needs money.
"Would YOU go to a casino that's in Chapter 11?"
Yes. But don't forget that states can claim sovereign immunity, and that bureaucrats are petty.
LOL. Isn’t that the truth!
Would a casino get away with an excuse like this?
What's not to say that the 'winning ticket is actually a misprint?
She didn’t fill out the form and didn’t turn in the ticket for inspection of tampering. I doubt it is even a misprint. She is a con or why else would she settle for $15,000 in small claims when the value of the ticket is $500,000?
She will get the ticket value and should get interest plus court costs.
Maybe lucky for her however. She may have put her 2007 winnings in the stock market and could have lost a lot of it!
Maybe the State did not print a winning ticket and thought they could get away with it.
Casinos can do this as well. I talked with a woman who works in a casino. If the slot machine turns up as a winner, the casino owners go to their computers. If the machine wasn’t scheduled to turn up a winner they declare this a machine error and refuse to honor the payout. She said the law backs them up on this, and was incensed that people feel they were cheated when this happens.
Guess I won’t be buying anymore lotto tickets here in Florida. I do better at Hard Rock Casino anyway. LOL
Agreed.
Not necessarily.There's a good chance that the jurors might not be able to fathom winning that kind of money themslves so "why should *she* get it?"
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