(Newswire.net — January 21, 2015) — Dalbir Sidhu ran a pool for Shoppers Drug Mart employees. His coworker Gayleen Elliott claims Sidhu won $50 million with the winning lottery ticket. Sidhu, however, said it’s all a big mistake and that he doesn’t have the ticket. Elliot said he has evidence to back his claim because no one has collected the prize yet.
“He’s pretty much been a victim in all this for forgetting to buythe tickets,” Benjamin Lau, Sidhu’s lawyer, said on Thursday.
Sidhu says that on March 7 of last year he bought the Lotto Max tickets. He said he used the same nine sets of numbers the pool members selected, and four tickets using the Quick Pick feature, however he forgot to actually purchase the ticket.
Allegedly, the winning ticket was purchased in Langley. Sidhu continued to purchase Lotto Max tickets for the pool and while purchasing tickets for that week’s draw, he validated the March 7 tickets, which he mistakenly believed were the March 14 tickets.
He says he also mistakenly recorded the pool’s March 7 Lotto Max results as the results for the March 14 Lotto Max draw.
Sidhu says that in May, Elliott asked him about the validated Lotto Max tickets for the March 7 and March 14 draws.
“The defendant did not realize he had not purchased the March 14, 2014, tickets until Sept. 22, 2014, after receiving the forwarded email from BCLC dated May 5, 2014,” says the response.
“For whatever reason, due to his mistake, and then also I guess some miscommunication with the plaintiff, for some reason the plaintiff believes he has the winning ticket,” said Sidhu’s Lawyer. “He never even bought the tickets that day, so how could he have the winning ticket?” he said adding that they “expect the case would be dropped.”
James Vilvang, Elliott’s lawyer, however noted that the winning ticket remains unclaimed and if it is not claimed by March 14, a year after the date of the winning draw, the money is going to be returned to the lottery’s pot for another draw.
“I guess that’ll be the answer. The lawsuit is still on and time will tell,” Vilvang said.
Elliott claimed that there was a contract among the lottery pool members, but Sidhu’s lawsuit denies that there was ever such a deal.