Assignment. Joseph LeMieux, of Maine, won $373,000 in a lottery operated by the Tri-State Lotto Commission. The lottery is sponsored by the three northern New England states and is administered in Vermont. In accordance with its usual payment plan,

Question

Tri-State was to pay the $373,000 to LeMieux in annual installments over a twenty-year period. LeMieux assigned his rights to the lottery payments for the years 1996 through 2006 to Singer Freidlander Corp for the sum of $80,000. LeMieux and Singer Freidlander (the plaintiffs) sought a court judgment authorizing their assignment agreement despite Tri-State's regulation barring the assignment of lottery proceeds. The trial court granted Tri-State's motion for summary judgment. On appeal, the plaintiffs argued that Tri-State's regulation was invalid. Is it? Discuss fully.

Answer 1

Assignment
The Vermont Supreme Court held that the regulation was invalid. The court pointed out that, unlike some other states' lottery statutes, Vermont's statute did not prohibit assignments of winnings: the statute only barred payment of the proceeds to someone other than the winner in the absence of an "appropriate judicial order." Because other states had passed their prohibitory statutes first, and Vermont had enacted a statute with similar language but without the prohibition on assignments, the court reasoned that the Vermont legislature "purposefully eliminated this language so as to allow for assignments." The court acknowledged that a court should not approve an assignment that would be unreasonable or unjust (for example, if it was the result of fraud, incapacity, duress, undue influence, or illegality). In any event, the regulation conflicted with the statute. The court reversed the trial court's grant of summary judgment and remanded for a determination as to whether the assignment was acceptable in this case.