LITTLE ROCK — A White County circuit judge on Thursday threw out his May 1 ruling awarding a $1 million lottery ticket prize to a woman who said she bought the ticket and wouldn’t have thrown it away had she known it was a winner.
White County Circuit Judge Thomas Hughes did not explain his decision to order a new trial.
“After reviewing the actions of counsel appearing in this case, the court file and the record, this court, as authorized by the Arkansas Rules of Civil Procedure, orders a new trial to be held on all claims in this case,” Hughes said in his order.
Asked for an explanation for why Hughes ordered a new trial, trial-court assistant Fran Robin said, “It’s an active case and he’s not speaking about it.”
In his ruling from the bench May 1, Hughes awarded the $1 million to Sharon Duncan of Beebe more than nine months after the lottery awarded the prize to Sharon Jones of Beebe on July 18 after she presented the winning ticket to claim the prize.
Jones testified that she plucked the ticket from a trash can in the Super 1 Stop convenience store in Beebe and discovered it was a winner.
Lisa Petriches, who manages the store, filed the lawsuit against Jones in August. Duncan and store owner Luay Dajani joined the suit after Hughes warned attorneys in January that it’s possible that neither Petriches nor Jones would win the case.
Petriches contended in her suit that Jones got the winning ticket “without permission” from a receptacle for discarded tickets that was marked “Do Not Take.” But Jones testified that she saw no such sign when she took discarded tickets from the trash can July 15 that included the $1 million winner and she didn’t believe she needed permission to take them.
In his written judgment awarding the $1 million to Duncan, Hughes wrote that Duncan “did not realize that” the ticket — Diamond Dazzler No. 14 — “was a winning ticket when she dropped it into the container.
“The question of abandonment of a claim is largely of intention,” Hughes wrote. “The burden of proof is on the one who asserts the abandonment of a claim.”
Citing a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Raglin v. Cusenier Co., Hughes wrote that “Acts which, unexplained, would be sufficient to establish an abandonment, may be answered by showing that there was never an intention to give up and relinquish the right claimed.”
In his ruling, Hughes wrote that Duncan “did not intentionally [give] up her claim to the $1 million prize money” and is entitled to the prize.
Attorney Winston Collier of Searcy, who represents Jones, said Thursday that Hughes’ decision to order a new trial “was the just thing to do.
“We are certainly excited and feel good about our chances going forward with the new trial. However, I can’t speculate on what grounds this [new trial] was granted.
“Right now, we are just elated that it has happened and we don’t necessarily need to know why it happened. We just unlost a million bucks,” Collier said.
Attorney James “Red” Morgan of Searcy, who represents Duncan, Petriches and Dajani, said Hughes “made a decision and we will have to adjust to it and retry the case.”
He said he doesn’t know why Hughes ordered a new trial, and he declined further comment.
Lottery Director Bishop Woosley said Thursday, “We are not a party to the lawsuit and therefore have not filed any pleadings with the court in this case,” and declined further comment.
Under lottery rules, “until such time as a name of an individual is imprinted or placed upon a lottery ticket in the area designated for their name, the ticket is a bearer instrument and is owned by the bearer of the ticket,” Woosley said last year after the suit was filed. Woosley was the lottery’s chief legal counsel at the time.
Once a name is placed on the ticket, it stops being a bearer instrument “and only the individual whose name appears in that area is the legal owner of the ticket or share,” Woosley has said. “The reverse sides of the tickets plainly encourage the owners to sign the ticket immediately upon purchase to ensure that no one else can claim a winning prize.”
In the written ruling awarding the money to Duncan, Hughes made no mention of the lottery’s rules, but he wrote that Jones filled out the back of the winning ticket, signed the ticket and claimed the $1 million prize.
After deductions of taxes, the $1 million prize turned out to be $680,000.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 05/25/2012