A woman who found an abandoned winning lottery ticket in the trash may have to return the $ 1 million winnings. A judge decided that Sharon Jones must return the prize money she won from the abandoned ticket to the purchaser of the ticket, Sharon Duncan. Ms. Jones’ attorney, James Simpson, is planning to appeal the decision and argues that Ms. Duncan abandoned her property when she threw away the ticket. Ms. Duncan, however, managed to prove that that she bought the winning ticket, and her attorney argued that Ms. Duncan made a mistake in throwing away the ticket.
The judge agreed with Ms. Duncan and concluded that Ms. Jones failed to meet her burden of proving that Ms. Duncan intended to throw away the ticket.
See Chuck Bartels, Woman Who Lost Ark. Lotto Ticket Entitled to $ 1M, AP, Yahoo! New, May 2, 2012.
Special thanks to Adam Hirsch (William & Catherine VanDercreek Professor, Florida State University
College of Law) for bringing this article to my attention.
