After two years of squabbling over the ownership of a $4 million winning scratch ticket, the litigants embroiled in a lawsuit agreed to a settlement in an effort to avoid another civil trial.
Julie Prive, a former clerk at an East Falmouth Tedeschi's convenience store, was sued by two customers, Raymond MacDonald and Monica Hertz, after she cashed in the scratch ticket in 2002.
MacDonald, 65, and Hertz each claim they bought and scratched the winning ticket at the store, then gave it to Prive believing it to be a losing ticket she could enter in the lottery's second-chance sweepstakes.
An exhaustive eight-day trial ended in a hung jury in August, and the parties contemplated taking the matter to court for the second time.
In the first move to "get the wheels moving" on the settlement, a Barnstable Superior Court judge agreed yesterday to release $50,000 put in an escrow account after Prive sold the Falmouth home she bought with her winnings last year.
MacDonald and Hertz, both of Falmouth, had put a lien on Prive's property in case they won a favorable jury verdict. The plaintiffs will receive $25,000; Prive and her husband, David, will get the other half. Prive has already collected $600,000 from the state.
The plaintiff's attorney, Tammy Arcuri, acknowledged to Judge Richard F. Connon that a settlement had been reached but refused to discuss details. "This begins the settlement process," she said. "But the rest is confidential."
When asked if he were pleased with the settlement, MacDonald, the only litigant in court yesterday, refused comment. MacDonald, who acknowledged he spent $100 a day on the lottery, won a $2 million jackpot from a scratch ticket in 1997.
Prive, 28, who moved her family out of Falmouth because of what she said was harassment about the case, said she is legally prohibited from discussing the settlement.
Weird ending to this story sounds like in Mass if you didn't actually purchase the ticket it doesn't belong to you. And because they didn't discuss the details of the settlement sounds like Prive might have came up short on the deal.
I just don't have much sympathy for the greedy harrassment of MacDonald and Hertz. So they've now prevailed, badgered money in defiance of the "bearer instrument" rules of the lottery and their lost court case. Where was that determination and doggedness when (if?) they had the winning ticket in their hand?
On the other hand, Prive has taught a valuable lesson to anyone who finds a winner in the future: Keep your big mouth shut and wait several months so memories can fade before before cashing it in.
The Prives learned a lesson that many lottery winners learn. Many losers, many of which the winners have never met, think they did not deserve to win and if one of them can find a way to get a winner in court, they have a good chance of convincing a jury to think the same way regardless of lottery rules about the winner being the person signing and turning in the winning ticket. That may be one of the reasons, some people prefer to make their claims anonymously when ever possible.
RJOh
if i were the lady, i wouldn't have agreed to the settlement. she deserved the whole winnings from the ticket. finders keepers, losers weepers. nuf said.
she is also going to need the money more than the old farts.
We live in a litigeous society. Let this be a lesson to all readers: Protect yourself or someone will do you. Good luck.
If you do not know how to see a winner then I would not play. I worked with the lottery and people just throw away winning scratch off all the time. Pa has what you win now that you can see. Lets face it the state and laws you will never win over them.
no, but you could keep appealing the case until they award in your favor to shut you up.