Jackpot! : Big Spin Winner Wins Again as $3.4-Million Award Stands

Doris Barnett came up a winner again Wednesday when a Los Angeles judge rejected an attempt by the California Lottery to upset a jury’s $3.4-million award to the 54-year-old Big Spin contestant, but her legal battle for the money seems far from over.

Almost immediately after Superior Court Judge Robert B. Lopez denied a motion for a retrial, lottery officials said they will appeal the judge’s decision to a higher court, probably sometime next week.

“We truly wish that Ms. Barnett’s spin could have won her $3 million,” said spokesman John Schade. “But if we don’t consistently enforce the rules governing each spin, we undermine the integrity of the game and then everyone loses.”

Barnett, who had greeted the judge’s decision with smiles and thanks to the Lord, said in a later phone interview that she is now “angry” and “disgusted” with lottery officials.

“They know they’re wrong,” she said. “I really feel angry now, but I’m not crying. . . . I’m going to hang in there to the last, until they give me my money. I’m going to fight it.”

Her legal battle could take months or even years, according to her lawyers, Lawrence J. Sperber and David B. Shapiro, who were successful in convincing a jury in April that Barnett is entitled to $3 million she apparently won, then lost, three years ago in the lottery’s televised Big Spin.

The jurors also decided that the licensed vocational nurse from Los Angeles is entitled to $400,000 in damages because of the emotional trauma she suffered when Big Spin television host Geoff Edwards first declared her a big winner, then told her she had won only $10,000 because the spin ball had not stayed in the $3-million slot for five seconds.

During the trial, Sperber and Shapiro argued that lottery officials had rarely abided by their own rules in waiting for the timer’s verification before announcing a winner. In some cases, they said, a winner has been declared before the wheel stopped spinning.

New Trial Denied

Sperber later likened the state’s position to that of a traffic control officer who waves motorists through a red light, then tries to ticket one of them for doing what he approved.

Lottery officials tried to upset the jury’s verdict in Barnett’s favor by calling for a new trial. When that failed, they said they would appeal the decision to the 2nd District Court of Appeal.

“We believe that the jury’s decision in this case allowed this player (Barnett) to be excluded from very specific rules and regulations that have been adhered to by more than 2,100 Big Spin contestants,” lottery spokesman Schade said.

Sperber indicated after Wednesday’s ruling that there is room for compromise between lottery officials and his client, who he said has undergone a “tremendous amount of emotional upset on this lottery roller coaster.”

“If somebody with authority from the lottery would contact me, we would be willing to negotiate a reasonable compromise, based upon the award of the jury and now the ruling of Judge Lopez that there was nothing wrong with the trial and the award,” Sperber said.