On March 21, 2003, Robert Palese bought five Delaware State Lottery tickets from a Delaware liquor store.

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On March 21, 2003, Robert Palese bought five Delaware State Lottery tickets from a Delaware liquor store. To select his numbers for the game, Palese used a “play slip” that contained five game panels. Each panel had a selection grid bearing numbers 1 through 38. Palese chose six numbers from each grid by manually filling in the grids. After purchasing the tickets, Palese placed them in his pants pocket and returned home. Several days later, he learned that someone had won the March 21 lottery but that the winner had not yet come forward. Palese searched for his tickets to see whether he had chosen the winning numbers, but he was unable to find the tickets. Eventually, he remembered that he had done laundry the same evening he purchased the tickets. He then concluded that the tickets, which had been left in his pants pocket, had probably been destroyed in the wash. Although the tickets were gone, Palese still had the play slip he used when he purchased the tickets. He checked the numbers on the play slip and discovered that the numbers he selected on the play slip’s fifth game panel were the winning numbers for the March 21 lottery. Reasoning that the play slip should be sufficient to satisfy the state’s Lottery Office that he had selected the winning numbers, Palese informed the office of his predicament. The Lottery Office ultimately took the position that the state’s lottery regulations and any contract arising from the purchase of the ticket required that the winning ticket itself be produced in order for the winner to claim the jackpot. Therefore, the Lottery Office denied Palese’s claim and transferred the jackpot to the state’s General Fund. Palese then sued the Lottery Office on a quasi-contract (unjust enrichment) theory. Did Palese win the case and collect the jackpot amount?

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Business Law The Ethical Global and E-Commerce Environment

ISBN: 978-1259917110

17th edition

Authors: Arlen Langvardt, A. James Barnes, Jamie Darin Prenkert, Martin A. McCrory

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