‘Initially, the plaintiffs congratulated Mandeep Singh Maan on his win,’ the judge wrote. ‘However, they soon became suspicious’
A B.C. man who won a $2-million lottery jackpot while also part of a workplace lotto pool has been told he doesn’t have to split his winnings with his coworkers.
In a Jan. 10 ruling by the B.C. Supreme Court, Justice Y. Liliane Bantourakis ruled that the winning ticket was the sole property of Mandeep Singh Maan, and that the winnings are all his too.
The case involved Mann and four coworkers — Balvinder Kaur Nagra, Sukhjinder Singh Sidhu, Binipal Singh Sanghera and Jeevan Pedan — who all worked for the same freight company, and who agreed to pool money to buy lottery tickets in 2021 and 2022.
The judge noted that the arrangement was somewhat ad hoc. “That is, 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,” she wrote in her decision.
“Frequently, it was either Mr. Maan or Mr. Sidhu who bought the group tickets. More rarely, it was Ms. Nagra. Other times, a young man named Mr. Singh, who worked at (the same company) but was not a member of the lottery group, went to the store to buy the tickets.”
She added: “Beyond this, the parties disagree on many things. For example, they disagree 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.”
Court heard that on the morning of Monday, Aug. 15, 2022, Maan bought a lottery ticket from a Chevron gas station in Langley for the Aug. 17 BC/49 draw. Three days later, he learned that the $6 ticket he had bought was a winner, with a jackpot of two million dollars.
But he didn’t tell his coworkers. They learned about the win almost two weeks later, when the British Columbia Lottery Corporation (BCLC) released a photo of him holding a two-million-dollar cheque, along with a statement about his win.
“Initially, the plaintiffs congratulated Mr. Maan on his win,” the judge wrote. “However, they soon became suspicious. About two weeks later, they filed their Notice of Civil Claim.”
Her decision, Bantourakis said, came down to two points: Did Maan use group funds to buy the winning ticket? And was he otherwise required to buy group tickets on that day?
Ultimately, she decided that neither of those conditions were met. She also pointed out in her ruling that Maan was “a committed and prolific lottery player on his own account for many years after having his interest piqued when he won a washing machine in a lottery in India years ago.” She added that he spends about $400 a month on lottery tickets.
She 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.” However: “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.”
She added: “Winning the lottery should be a happy event,” she wrote. “In this case, sadly, it has ruined relationships.”