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Lottery winner asking a judge to let her keep the cash and remain anonymous

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Re: Lottery winner asking a judge to let her keep the cash and remain anonymous

#111

Post by user5994461 »

tclancy wrote: post #38
tompetry wrote: post #8

I understand the desire to be anonymous, but things like this get out. While taking this route might benefit future winners, it will likely make her own situation worse via the "Streisand effect": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

The Streisand Effect would apply if her name was being bandied about because she was trying to suppress the news. That's not the case.

And sending a request to a couple of newpapers to have your full name redacted will most likely just be done without further questioning.

Re: Lottery winner asking a judge to let her keep the cash and remain anonymous

#112

Post by kodablah »

coldtea wrote: post #109
kodablah wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really appreciate skirting "technicalities", especially in a precedent-setting legal decision. If the law is wrong (or even if the spirit/intent of the law does not apply here), she should win and the law should change or be struck down. I wouldn't mind if the judge decided "it's illegal to make someone who signed a lottery ticket with their real name not change to a trust and keep their name hidden." But I w…

> If the law is wrong (or even if the spirit/intent of the law does not apply here), she should win and the law should change or be struck down. That's orthogonal. What you propose translates to that while the law is not changed (which can take decades in some cases) we should let people suffer rather than "skip technicalities" when we can. How about sodomy laws (still present in some jurisdictions). Should they be i…

> That's orthogonal. What you propose translates to that while the law is not changed (which can take decades in some cases) we should let people suffer rather than "skip technicalities" when we can.

You misunderstand me. I am saying if the law is wrong, she should win (and so should everyone else, every time, while the law is wrong). I am also saying if the law is wrong, it should change or be struck down. I am not saying she should lose until the law is changed.

Re: Lottery winner asking a judge to let her keep the cash and remain anonymous

#113

Post by walshemj »

mcbits wrote: post #106
wgerard wrote: post #6

I hope she wins. There's a pretty funny (or sad, I suppose) reddit comment about winning the lottery that seems pretty true: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/24vzgl/you_just_... Winning the lottery (publicly, at least) seems to be a real monkey's paw wish.

I really disagree with the common advice to take the lump sum - unless the winner is elderly. It seems to be centered on the idea that you can earn more interest/dividends yourself, but there are a few problems with that. 1. To get higher rates of return, you expose yourself to more risk of losses. The risk is real, i.e., you could lose everything. 2. You need even better (riskier) returns to pay for all the legal/in…

You are ignoring political risk eg in 15 years that state government changes the rules and sequesters the money - this actually happened in the UK to the SERP pension I lost mine for a small uplift in the state pension when they changed the rules.

You also ignoring the time value of money 100 million to day is worth more than 10 million for 10 years

Re: Lottery winner asking a judge to let her keep the cash and remain anonymous

#114

Post by greggarious »

giarc wrote: post #35
sosuke wrote: post #3

If you don't happen to read the article and think to mention the anonymous trust way of accepting the winnings. She can't do that either. "The state allows people to form an anonymous trust, NewHampshire.com reported, but it’s a moot point for the woman — she signed her name on the back of the ticket shortly after winning, and altering the signature would nullify the ticket." Oh and an excellent tidbit out of the sto…

So moral of the story is to never sign your ticket. Looks like some lucky person was smart enough to do that. "In 2016, the last winner of the Powerball followed that advice. The $487 million prize claimed through the Robin Egg 2016 Nominee Trust, which was created by Shaheen, and he serves as its trustee."

> So moral of the story is to never sign your ticket.

But doesn't this mean if someone can assault you and steal the ticket they can claim it themselves? Sounds like both have risks :/

Re: Lottery winner asking a judge to let her keep the cash and remain anonymous

#115

Post by ABCLAW »

apaprocki wrote: post #99
kodablah wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really appreciate skirting "technicalities", especially in a precedent-setting legal decision. If the law is wrong (or even if the spirit/intent of the law does not apply here), she should win and the law should change or be struck down. I wouldn't mind if the judge decided "it's illegal to make someone who signed a lottery ticket with their real name not change to a trust and keep their name hidden." But I w…

If you read any legal opinions in visible cases they are never just the judge feeling or not feeling sorry for the plaintiff (or defendant) and are deeply steeped in the law as written as well as precedent before even approaching making new precedent. Maybe a judge could comment but I’d venture they would almost avoid territory that would be ripe for appeal as much as possible.

Judges that aren't on specialized tribunals aren't expected to, and mostly don't, know the law (because it's quite impossible) - they rely on the Barristers to inform them, then get their clerks to do some digging to see if the briefs are on point. The higher up you go in the chain, the more clerk time they have to research and the more control they have over how long they take to put out their ruling.

Junior judges are more reticent to rock the boat - they have less resources, less understanding of how the judicial boards and other oversight mechanisms work, etc. Old greybeards generally stop caring - either about bothering to change things or about how 'safe' their ruling will be on appeal. The most active in tossing bad precedent out the window generally end up being the ones that get appointed to higher ranking courts.

Re: Lottery winner asking a judge to let her keep the cash and remain anonymous

#116

Post by kodablah »

ABCLAW wrote: post #105
kodablah wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really appreciate skirting "technicalities", especially in a precedent-setting legal decision. If the law is wrong (or even if the spirit/intent of the law does not apply here), she should win and the law should change or be struck down. I wouldn't mind if the judge decided "it's illegal to make someone who signed a lottery ticket with their real name not change to a trust and keep their name hidden." But I w…

Why? Equitable relief is precedent-setting, and derives from the basis of "whoa, our rules feel 'off', lets give this person a break". If you want the precedent to be narrowly used, you just write a ruling that makes it clear that the outcome is exceptionally fact specific.

We should ask our judges not to legislate from the bench by giving narrowly construed decisions contrary to the written law that apply to nobody else. Either every lottery winner in the state is legally right to remain anonymous and collect (be it via changing to a trust whilst remaining anonymous or however) or every one is not. This is not some extreme example and I can definitely see this coming up again.

Re: Lottery winner asking a judge to let her keep the cash and remain anonymous

#117

Post by savanaly »

mcbits wrote: post #106
wgerard wrote: post #6

I hope she wins. There's a pretty funny (or sad, I suppose) reddit comment about winning the lottery that seems pretty true: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/24vzgl/you_just_... Winning the lottery (publicly, at least) seems to be a real monkey's paw wish.

I really disagree with the common advice to take the lump sum - unless the winner is elderly. It seems to be centered on the idea that you can earn more interest/dividends yourself, but there are a few problems with that. 1. To get higher rates of return, you expose yourself to more risk of losses. The risk is real, i.e., you could lose everything. 2. You need even better (riskier) returns to pay for all the legal/in…

Huh? You could still have all those benefits if you took the lump sum. Just put it in index funds and extract as needed. Stocks deemed too risky? Put it in bonds. It will still be better than the pathetic interest rate offered by the lottery's annuity.

Re: Lottery winner asking a judge to let her keep the cash and remain anonymous

#118

Post by kodablah »

baddox wrote: post #104
kodablah wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really appreciate skirting "technicalities", especially in a precedent-setting legal decision. If the law is wrong (or even if the spirit/intent of the law does not apply here), she should win and the law should change or be struck down. I wouldn't mind if the judge decided "it's illegal to make someone who signed a lottery ticket with their real name not change to a trust and keep their name hidden." But I w…

I think this should set a precedent, and I am quite confident that it wouldn’t cause any problems other than the lottery being upset about losing publicity.

I think that's reasonable and would not be surprised if the judge says that the harm placed on the individual by the state just for participating is too large, legally. But I would also not be surprised if public's right to know trumps all.

Re: Lottery winner asking a judge to let her keep the cash and remain anonymous

#119

Post by _m8fo »

Erik816 wrote: post #45
_m8fo wrote: post #12

I honestly don't see the issue. The only reason the lotto works is because people know you can win and it's not rigged, and the only way you can know that is by making the winners public. Finally, the only reason said lottery was $XXXM is because of the people who tried and failed, funding it. I doubt lotteries would pay such large amounts long term if anonymous lotteries were standard as fraud is inevitable. Being a…

The lottery works because people are driven by hope and are bad at (or don't care about) math. No one goes around verifying that the people who won the lottery actually get their money. Why would fraud be inevitable if you were allowed to form an anonymous trust before claiming your winnings? You still have to produce the winning ticket. What new vector for fraud does this open up? If the people running the lottery a…

I don't understand -- you already are allowed to form an anonymous trust. That's not the issue.

Re: Lottery winner asking a judge to let her keep the cash and remain anonymous

#120

Post by thaumasiotes »

walshemj wrote: post #113
mcbits wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really disagree with the common advice to take the lump sum - unless the winner is elderly. It seems to be centered on the idea that you can earn more interest/dividends yourself, but there are a few problems with that. 1. To get higher rates of return, you expose yourself to more risk of losses. The risk is real, i.e., you could lose everything. 2. You need even better (riskier) returns to pay for all the legal/in…

You are ignoring political risk eg in 15 years that state government changes the rules and sequesters the money - this actually happened in the UK to the SERP pension I lost mine for a small uplift in the state pension when they changed the rules. You also ignoring the time value of money 100 million to day is worth more than 10 million for 10 years

> You also ignoring the time value of money 100 million to day is worth more than 10 million for 10 years

The "now" and "later" lottery payment options do not offer equal nominal amounts, so it doesn't make sense to just say "you're ignoring the time value of money". The regular payment pays out more nominal money because of the time value of money. You could argue that they're getting it wrong, but that's a radically different argument.

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