Foreign Property News | Posted by Aye Myat Thu
A COWORKER has sued their fellow employee over a $12.5million jackpot after they allegedly stumbled upon the discarded ticket by chance, and officials ruled the funds belonged to the lucky finder.
In Gregory, South Dakota, in 1991, about 100 miles southeast of Pierre, then-convenience store clerk Ionia Klein, 32, found a lottery ticket left behind the service counter at Mr. G's convenience store.
(The owners of a convenience store in South Dakota, along with an employee, sued a worker who found a discarded lottery ticket worth over $12million.Credit: Facebook/Mr. G's)
(The late Ionia Klein saw the ticket when she arrived at work in April 1991 and quickly bought it and called the lottery comission.Credit: Kotrba-Smith Funeral Home)
It had been lying there for three days after a customer refused to pay for it, per The New York Times.
A different clerk, Robin Parsons, had mistakenly thought that the customer wanted a five-dollar ticket, but they instead wanted five one-dollar tickets.
That was on April 4, and two days later, the winning numbers were announced on the news as the ticket sat discarded behind the service counter.
After arriving at work on April 7, Klein quickly noticed that the numbers had matched the announcement the night before, per The Chicago Tribune.
She then paid for the five-dollar ticket, signed the back, and phoned lottery officials to inform them the winning ticket was in her possession.
''It was just like finding a ticket on the street, except that I paid for it,'' Klein told the publication.
"All the numbers matched, so I bought it." At the time, she was South Dakota's first lottery jackpot winner, and lottery officials did not dispute the late Klein's claim to the prize.
Robin Parsons, the clerk who committed the misprint, came forward to file a lawsuit and claim that the jackpot was hers, given that it was her responsibility to pay for the misprinted ticket.
Scott and Julie Anshutz and Mike and Diane Dacy, the owners of Mr. G's, also claimed that the ticket was rightfully theirs given that they paid Lotto America, the Des Moines-based organization, for all unpaid and misprinted tickets.
A lawsuit was subsequently issued by the Anshutz and the Dacy couple, and an out-of-court settlement was reached in July 1991, per The Seattle Times.
The couples were awarded 58 percent of the split in comparison to Klein's 42 percent, according to court documents obtained by the publication.
The Anshutz and the Dacy couples were given $125,000 each and then a remaining split of $151,000 in annuity payments for 19 years.
Parsons's lawsuit was dismissed in August 1991 after a ruling, per court documents.
Ref: FINDERS KEEPERS I sued employee who won $12.5M on lotto ticket she found in my store – officials sided with her but we all got a payout (the-sun)
