Lottery Tip Unleashed Lawsuits, Kidnapping

In 1999, a Waffle House waitress named Tonda Lynn Dickerson received a Florida lottery ticket as a tip in Alabama and won $10 million. Four coworkers sued for 80 percent of the prize, claiming they had agreed to share any winnings, but the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that the gambling-based agreement could not be enforced. The man who tipped her, Edward Seward, then sued over an alleged promise to buy him a truck and lost; soon afterward, Dickerson's ex-husband, Stacy Martin, kidnapped her in Mississippi, and she shot him in the chest while escaping. Her ordeal later reached the U.S. Tax Court, which ruled that transferring the ticket into a family-owned corporation created a taxable gift but valued it at $1,119,348 after accounting for the coworkers' claim.

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