DENVER - A Colorado Springs, Colo. woman who bought scratch ticket that had no chance of winning the top prize is suing the owner of the gas station where she bought the tickets in 1998.
LaVonne Bazemore Watkins said she bought a $2 "Luck of the Zodiac" scratch ticket with the top, $10,000 prize in mind.
Watkins said she later learned that the last $10,000 winning ticket had been claimed more than two months before she even played the game.
She sued the state Lottery. The case has been in the courts for eight years.
Watkins recently was forced to drop the lottery as a defendant in the case after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that she couldn't sue the state agency because of the Colorado Governmental Immunity Act.
Watkins is represented by former Arizona Deputy Attorney General Rob Carey, a class action lawyer with the Phoenix law firm of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP.
He has filed similar lawsuits against lotteries in Arizona, California, and Washington. None of the challenges have been successful so far.
From Legal Newsline: Reach reporter Chris Rizo at chrisrizo@legalnewsline.com.
