Judge rules trucker Mandeep Maan will keep $2,000,000 BC/49 lottery prize

AS B.C. Supreme Court Justice Y. Liliane Bantourakis noted in her ruling released on Monday: “Winning the lottery should be a happy event. In this case, sadly, it has ruined relationships.”

The parties who are coworkers at a freight and warehousing company were members of a workplace lottery pool.

On August 15, 2022, the defendant, Mandeep Singh Maan, purchased a BC/49 lottery ticket from a Chevron gas station in Langley with winning numbers that yielded a $2,000,000 prize. The plaintiffs, Balvinder Kaur Nagra, Sukhjinder Singh Sidhu, Binipal Singh Sanghera and Jeevan Pedan, alleged that this was a group ticket in which they should have shared equally. But Maan said the winnings were his alone.

The ruling noted that when Maan learned that the BC/49 ticket he had bought was a winner, he did not tell his coworkers of this good fortune. It added: “Instead, they learned of his win 11 days later when a photo of him holding a two-million-dollar BCLC cheque was posted online.  Initially, the plaintiffs congratulated Mr. Maan on his win. However, they soon became suspicious. About two weeks later, they filed their Notice of Civil Claim.”

The judge pointed out in her ruling: “While this case is based in the law of contract and trusts, the outcome turns on the answer to a largely factual question: was the winning ticket a group ticket, or not? As I will explain, that depends on whether Mr. Maan received group money for the winning ticket purchase or was otherwise buying or required to buy lottery tickets for the group that day.”

According to the ruling, the parties agreed that they pooled money to buy lottery tickets together from at least 2021 to 2022. They also agreed that when they pooled money for lottery tickets, the person in charge of buying the group tickets changed. No one person was responsible for group lottery ticket purchases and the decision on who would buy the tickets for any given week or day was made from purchase to purchase, spontaneously and as the need arose.

Frequently, it was either Maan or Sidhu who bought the group tickets. More rarely, it was Nagra. Other times, a young man named Singh, who worked at the company but was not a member of the lottery group, went to the store to buy the tickets.

The judge noted that beyond this, the parties disagreed on many things. For example, they disagreed on how often they bought tickets as a group, whether the purchases they did make during the relevant period always involved the same group of five people, what kinds of lottery tickets they normally bought, and whether photos of the group tickets were usually sent around once they were bought.

There was no written agreement, and they kept no records other than some WhatsApp messages and about 16 photos of lottery tickets.

The judged ruled: “Considering the evidence as a whole, I find as a fact that Mr. Maan did not receive group money or tickets on August 12, 2022 and did not use group money or tickets when he bought the winning ticket on August 15, 2022.”

She also ruled: “The plaintiffs have argued in the alternative that if Mr. Maan did not use group funds for the winning lottery purchase, he breached the agreement between them by not buying tickets for the group on August 15, 2022. They argue that on this basis also they should share in the winnings.

“It seems unlikely that this argument could succeed without evidence that Mr. Maan agreed to buy group lottery tickets on August 15, 2022. … The alleged agreement did not assign responsibility for buying tickets to any one person. If Mr. Maan did not agree to be the buyer for that day, it is difficult to see how he could have breached the agreement by not buying. I have rejected Mr. Sanghera’s evidence that Mr. Maan agreed to buy for the group during their telephone conversation the morning of August 15, 2022. Without it, evidence that Mr. Maan agreed to buy for the group that day is lacking.”

She also noted: “The fact that the parties bought lottery tickets together, even if they did so with some frequency, is not sufficient to discharge the plaintiffs’ burden of proving on a balance of probabilities that they entered into a binding oral agreement with the defendant that would give them a claim over the winning ticket.”

The judge concluded: “It is my impression that each of the plaintiffs came to Court with a sincerely held belief in their entitlement to a share of the winnings. Though it is impossible to know, I suspect that sense of entitlement was born at least in part from the fact that some of them did play the lottery together more often than the photos show and from Mr. Maan’s post-win behaviour, which they found suspicious. Though the plaintiffs may feel that they have a moral entitlement to a share of the winnings, they have not established any legal entitlement. Their claim is therefore dismissed.”

 

 

When playing as a group

 

Playnow.com provides “tips to keep in mind when playing as a group and some steps that may help avoid any misunderstandings.”

Here are some of them:

* “Be sure there is a clear understanding amongst the group members of what happens when a group member is away and does not contribute into a draw. Be sure this understanding is communicated to all group members.”

* “When purchasing as a group, it’s always a good idea to have a record of which group members have contributed to the ticket purchases.”

* “When the group captain purchases the ticket(s), ask for a group copy ticket that can be distributed to each group member so each player can check numbers if they wish. Only an original lottery ticket can be used to claim a prize.

* “If the group is organized at your workplace, don’t write your company name on the ticket, as this could imply your company may have a stake in the prize.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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