$50,000 Winning in Dispute : Judge Refuses to Stop Lottery Ticket Payoff

An Orange County plumber who claims a co-worker welshed on an agreement to split his winning $100,000 California Lottery ticket failed Wednesday in his efforts to stop payment of the disputed $50,000 until the argument is resolved.

Superior Court Judge Jack M. Newman refused to issue a preliminary injunction barring payment of half of Melvin Coleman’s ticket, saying Rick Mayes did not appear able to prove in court that Coleman had agreed to the split.

Mayes, 30, of Orange said he and Coleman had made a pact on their first day at work on a plumbing job in May to evenly split whatever they made off the lottery tickets they were buying while car pooling to work.

On July 24, the two men walked into an Arco AM-PM Minimart in Hawthorne and walked back to their truck, where they started scratching their tickets, Mayes said after an Aug. 1 hearing at which Newman had granted him a temporary restraining order.

“He goes, ‘Rick, I got it.’ And I said, ‘All right. We’re $50,000 richer!’ And he said, ‘Nope, it’s my ticket.’ ”

Coleman, 33, of Garden Grove denies there was any agreement to split with Mayes. On that particular morning, Coleman says, Mayes was in a bad mood because the two had had an argument the night before at a bowling alley.

“He wasn’t even talking to me, but now all of a sudden we made a deal to split my winning ticket,” Coleman said.

Mayes’ lawsuit, which alleged breach of partnership, bad faith and fraud, not only asked the court to sort out who gets what, but sought $1 million in punitive damages from Coleman in recognition of the “ill will, spite and hatred” involved.