As a matter of first impression, a licensed retail store owns a terminal-printed lottery ticket as soon as it was printed, regardless of whether it was mistakenly printed and remained unsold to any customer.

The plaintiff-store was a retailer licensed to sell terminal-based lottery tickets. Prior to upcoming drawings, the terminal automatically prints lottery tickets and the plaintiff was required to pay for all printed tickets, even if they were printed by mistake and the plaintiff was unable to sell them. Each morning, employees of the plaintiff scanned any unsold (mistake) tickets to determine whether any were winners, thus, entitling the plaintiff to collect prize money.

The subject ticket was a “mistaken” ticket that was printed and then rejected by a customer. After the defendant-employee discovered that the subject ticket was a winning ticket for a prize in the amount of $4,150,000, the defendant-employee attempted to purchase the ticket. No employee or supervisor at the store authorized or approved of the defendant’s taking possession of the ticket.

The plaintiff filed a complaint in order to determine the proper owner of the ticket, and the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment. On appeal, the Superior Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the trial court’s order granting summary judgment in favor of the store.

As a matter of first impression, in interpreting the Pennsylvania Lottery Code, 61 Pa. Code §§ 801.1, et seq., the Superior Court noted that a provision of the Lottery Code viewing the bearer of the terminal-ticket as the owner did not defeat the plaintiff’s ownership claim. The Superior Court reasoned that, pursuant to the license agreement the plaintiff had with the Pennsylvania Lottery, the plaintiff was financially responsible for each printed ticket. Accordingly, the Superior Court agreed with the trial court’s holding that the plaintiff (retailer) owns a ticket as soon as it is printed and unless and until it is resold to a customer. The Superior Court further agreed with the trial court that the plaintiff was the owner of the subject ticket at the time the defendant-employee took possession of it without any justification or consent.

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