Lottery agent owner loses lawsuit, must pay 1.5 billion VND in compensation

The owner of a lottery ticket agency in Kien Giang had his appeal rejected and had to compensate the owner of the jackpot ticket for the special prize.

After a week of deliberation, on November 7, Kien Giang People's Court rejected the appeal of Mr. Ngo Xuan Phuc (natural representative of Trieu Phat lottery agent) as well as the protest of Rach Gia City People's Procuracy against the first instance judgment of the same level court.

At the same time, the court ordered Mr. Phuc and Ms. Ngo Thi Thu (legal representative of Trieu Phat lottery agent) to be jointly responsible for paying Ms. Nguyen Thi Tuyet (in Mong Tho A commune, Chau Thanh, Kien Giang) the amount of the special prize of the lottery ticket, equivalent to 1.344 billion VND after redemption (after tax deduction).

Ms. Tuyet's family at court. Photo: Cuu Long.

The court held that the appeal of the Rach Gia City People's Procuracy stated that the Trieu Phat lottery agency was owned by a household, of which Mr. Ngo Xuong Phuc was a member. Ms. Tuyet came to redeem the prize and transacted with the agency, not with Mr. Phuc. Therefore, Ms. Tuyet's lawsuit against Mr. Phuc was "the wrong person".

This can be remedied by the appellate court and the nature of the case remains unchanged. At the same time, Mr. Ngo Xuong Phuc's appeal has no new details.

According to records, on July 22, 2011, Ms. Tuyet and her family brought lottery ticket 938368 - issued by An Giang Lottery Company Limited - winning the special prize of 1.5 billion VND to Trieu Phat lottery agent to redeem the prize.

After checking, the agent, Mr. Ngo Xuong Phuc, confirmed that the lottery ticket won the jackpot and agreed to pay Ms. Tuyet 20 taels of 24k gold, the rest in cash.

Mrs. Tuyet went to the car to get her ID card to do the paperwork. When she returned, she saw that Mr. Phuc had flipped the lottery ticket to the back, took out his ID card to write down the information, then pushed the lottery ticket to Mr. Phuong (Mrs. Tuyet's uncle) and asked him to sign.

Mr. Phuc took the lottery ticket, put it in a plastic bag and had his family put it in the closet. A few minutes later, Mr. Phuc called his nephew to check it again. After looking at it with the naked eye, the nephew said that the lottery ticket had been cut and pasted unevenly in the first and last numbers of the 6-digit series, so he refused to exchange it and called the police.

Kien Giang police once initiated a case of Fraudulent appropriation of property but suspended it because they could not determine the act of swapping lottery tickets.

Ms. Tuyet sued lottery agent Trieu Phat to compensate her for 1.5 billion VND in damages.

The case was brought to trial twice but was postponed. One time, out of frustration, Ms. Tuyet and her relatives caused a disturbance in court. For this action, she and her daughter were sentenced to 12 months in prison; two other relatives were also sentenced to 7 months in prison.

In April 2016, the Rach Gia City People's Court held that Trieu Phat agency violated the principles of civil transactions, leading to the plaintiff's loss. The fact that Ms. Tuyet did not receive 1.5 billion VND as agreed was due to the fault of the lottery agency owner. Therefore, Mr. Phuc was forced to pay the plaintiff the amount of the special prize.

Mr. Phuc later appealed, claiming that he did not swap Ms. Tuyet's lottery ticket.

Six months later, the Kien Giang People's Court of Appeal overturned the judgment because it believed that the first instance court had seriously violated the procedural law when determining the dispute as "compensation for property damage during the process of exchanging lottery tickets that won the special prize", but when issuing the judgment, it determined the relationship as "service contract dispute"; the evidence had not been collected at the investigation agency...

On May 31, the People's Court of Rach Gia City held a trial, stating that the results of the forensic examination by the Institute of Criminal Science (Ministry of Public Security) on the camera images at the lottery agency determined that: The lottery ticket that Ms. Tuyet gave to Mr. Phuc at first and the lottery ticket that Mr. Phuc gave to Ms. Tuyet's uncle to sign were different. The lottery ticket that did not win the jackpot was taken by Mr. Phuc from the cabinet behind the transaction desk.

The court then accepted Ms. Tuyet's lawsuit, forcing the owner of Trieu Phat lottery agency to pay the plaintiff 1.5 billion VND for the winning lottery ticket. However, the Rach Gia City People's Procuracy and Mr. Phuc disagreed with this verdict.

According to VNE