The case of a group of Bell employees wanting in on a prize claimed by 19 of their colleagues is set to become a civil suit after the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. divided the $50-million prize into 30 shares on Monday. Nineteen of those shares were paid out to the original co-workers who claimed the cash; the other 11 were put into civil court, where they await a legal tussle over the winnings.
It will build on a growing, often fuzzy file of Canadian lottery-dispute case law, in which trust principles (what should you reasonably have expected from your co-workers?) often come into play as much as oral contracts and written evidence.
But the unfolding drama also offers a window on the bizarre psychological politics of workplace lottery pools gone wrong. The combination of group loyalty, the rush of gambling victory and individuals’ conviction that they might be cheated out of rightfully won prize money converge to ensure these cases become protracted, hard-fought and bitter.
In six months, three of the OLG’s 12 group payouts over $1,000 resulted in disputes. And the workplace fallout can get ugly.
Just ask former workers at the Powco steel plant in Barrie, Ont. For three years, 27 claimants of a $24.5-million jackpot duked it out with four people who also claimed part of the money. They finally settled over Christmas, 2010, but not before the dispute hijacked their lives, turned their workplace toxic and drove most of them to seek employment elsewhere.
“It’s supposed to be the happiest time in your life, and it’s anything but that,” said Travis Rommelaere, who felt forced to quit his job at Powco shortly after the victory that wasn’t – he just couldn’t take the work environment.
“These people who lodged a complaint, they’d be five, 10, 20 feet away. … Working beside them for the next three or four months, you feel like smashing them in the face.”
Even Nick Lymbertos, among the four additional claimants who got some of the money after the out-of-court settlement, is upset at how things turned out.
“No, I’m not happy. I’m not happy about what happened: Three years of our life went to hell,” he said. “I’m done with it.
“We settled. … When you settle, nobody wins.”
Don’t get Donald Taylor started: The McGill psychology professor doesn’t like the way lotteries hijack meritocratic societal assumptions – “that you get rewarded depending upon your ability and effort.”
Lottery jackpots throw that concept out the window – but at the same time, he said, winning big can create a “false sense of deserving.”
“People believe they caused themselves to win. … The implications are that when you win, instead of saying, ‘God, that’s dumb luck,’ you say, ‘No, I caused it to win.’” And that makes it all the harder to relinquish a portion of the winnings: It becomes a matter of principle.
On Monday, there was a lot of relieved laughter at the OLG prize office as an oversized novelty cheque was handed over and giddy co-workers posed for photographs. But the 19 employees at the Toronto-area Bell call centre argue the number on the cheque – $31,690,395.07 – was $18-million short. And they say they’re prepared to go to court to get their due even if it takes years.
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Published Monday, Feb. 14, 2011 9:26PM ESTLast updated Monday, Feb. 14, 2011 10:29PM EST12 comments 
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