A Charleston man has filed a lawsuit seeking $700 million over allegations he was told the incorrect cutoff time to play the Powerball lottery in 2017 at a Texas convenience store.

Eric Vondrake filed his complaint in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia against 7-Eleven Inc., Multi-State Lottery Association, Mavis L. Wanczyk, the Massachusetts State Lottery Commission, Southwest Convenience Stores, Rahkee P. Sharma, Pawan R. Sharma and the Texas Lottery Commission alleging negligence, negligent misrepresentation and other counts.

According to the complaint, on Aug. 23, 2017, Vondrake visited a 7-Eleven convenience store in Carrollton, Texas, owned by the Sharmas. He asked a clerk what the cutoff time was to play the Powerball lottery game. He alleges he was told the incorrect time and was unable to play. Wanczyk, a Massachusetts resident, won the $700 million jackpot for that drawing.

Vondrake says he was told the cutoff time to play Powerball was 9:30 p.m. Central time, and he bought his ticket at 9:15 p.m. Central time. The cutoff time actually is 9 p.m. Central time.

“This case is not about picking winning numbers but the focus of this case is about the fact that the plaintiff as a citizen has the right to play the Powerball like any other citizen, but those rights were taken away from him by the defendants’ negligence, customs and policies,” Vondrake says in his complaint. “Moreover, the majority of the lawyers that the plaintiff conferred with were only interested in how many numbers that the plaintiff successfully picked.

“This two dimensional thinking was a problem for the plaintiff. When faced with the jury, the plaintiff plans to argue that if he failed to pick any of the correct numbers that it would not matter in this case, because the focus is not numbers but restriction of rights. Rosa Parks’ case wasn’t about a seat on a bus, but her right as a citizen of the United States.”

The next day, Vondrake, who says he lived in Texas at the time of the incident, says he went back to the 7-Eleven and spoke to store manager, who he believes was Rakhee Sharma, about the incident.

“I am sorry about that, the employee gave you the wrong time,” Rakhee Sharma told him, according to the complaint. Sharma also said the employee was new and didn’t know lottery rules before offering Vondrake a free cup of coffee “after her employee caused the plaintiff to lose millions.”

Vondrake says he wrote letters to Sharma, 7-Eleven and the Texas Lottery Commission about the incident, and he all claims the unknown 7-Eleven worker was an illegal alien.

“Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents targeted dozens of 7-Eleven stores in 2017, arresting 21 people in a nationwide immigration sweep,” the complaint states. “The state of Texas was part of the ICE round-up and raids. There is little doubt in the plaintiff’s mind that the employee of the 7-Eleven store in question would have been also a target of this federal raid. And after my complaint to 7-Eleven the unknown employee vanished.”

Vondrake also notes that the Powerball game playslips do not include a cutoff time to play for consumers.

“Consumers are baited by the amount of money offered to play these lottery games, just as the plaintiff was baited,” the complaint states. “But the plaintiff was not provided that critical information of knowing the Powerball lottery cutoff time to play the game or when the Powerball closes.”

Vondrake requests a trial by jury and seeks special damages in the amount of $700 million, general damages, punitive damages, court costs, attorney fees, incidental damages, trebled damages, pre-judgment interest, injunctive and declaratory relief. He says if his alternative for compensation is not acceptable as pled, he will sue the defendants for $2.8 billion, which is four times the amount of the Powerball prize won by Wanczyk.

Vondrake is representing himself. However, four days after filing his complaint, he filed a motion to dismiss without prejudice because he was involved in a collision with a semi-truck.

“The emergency room doctor and two medical specialists have concluded that the plaintiff sustained a concussion and or traumatic brain injury,” Vondrake says in his motion, which was granted two days after being filed.

Vondrake did not respond to messages seeking further information about the case.

By: Alexandra Deabler

A $5 million lawsuit brought about by two McDonald’s customers in Florida was thrown out last week by U.S. District Judge William Dimitrouleas, granting a motion filed by McDonald’s.

Judge Dimitrouleas dismissed the lawsuit last Friday “with prejudice,” Miami Herald reported, meaning the plaintiffs are not allowed to file the lawsuit again at a later date.

In May, the South Florida couple, Cynthia Kissner and Leonard Werner, filed the suit complaining they had been charged the full price of a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, even though they requested the burger not have cheese.

Kissner and Werner argued that hamburgers and cheeseburgers are different prices on the McDonald’s menu, but when they order a Quarter Pounder without the extra dairy, they’re still forced to pay the same amount.

According to the lawsuit, McDonald’s used to sell four different Quarter Pounder options, two of which came without cheese and cost between 30 to 90 cents less, the Miami Herald reported. However, “at some point,” the fast food chain stopped selling the different variations and currently only lists the one Quarter Pounder with Cheese on the menu.

“McDonald’s is being unjustly enriched by these practices because it receives payment for cheese it does not deliver to its customers,” the lawsuit states.

Though, despite the couple’s claims of having “suffered injury as a result of their purchases because they were overcharged,” the judge did not feel the plaintiffs proved being harmed by having to pay more.

The judge also said that the Quarter Pounder and Quarter Pounder with Cheese are separate products and each can be purchased at McDonald’s, and called Kissner and Werner’s attempt to say the hamburger is only available with cheese is “absurd and fails.”

According to the Miami Herald, the judge’s dismissal went on to say, “Under any common sense analysis, there is no market for a customer to come into a McDonald’s restaurant and order a slice or two of ‘cheese’ as a product that is separate, distinct, and independent from any other product or menu item. Nor is there a separate product market for a customer to order a slice of tomato, or a slice of lettuce, or a slice of pickle, etc.”

The county clerk has closed the case.

By: Jonathan Bilyk

Across the U.S., Americans pay hefty costs for lawsuits, with the price tag stretching from the courthouses to the most basic levels of American life, adding thousands of dollars each year to Americans’ household budget costs, according to a new study of tort litigation costs.

The study, released by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Legal Reform, indicates, nationwide, the cost of litigation hit $429 billion, or 2.3 percent of U.S. gross domestic product in 2016.

And, study report authors said, only about 57 cents of every dollar in those costs actually went to compensate plaintiffs, with the rest going to pay lawyers, insurance and administrative costs.

These bills have broad societal and economic effects, said ILR president Lisa Rickard, as they “drive costs, chill innovation and kill jobs.”

The ILR unveiled the litigation cost report at the organization’s annual conference, known as SummitXX, at the U.S. Chamber’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.

The report was prepared for the ILR by authors Paul Hinton and David McKnight, of The Brattle Group, and Lawrence Powell, director of the Alabama Center for Insurance Information and Research at the Culverhouse College of Business.

Rickard noted the nation’s total estimated litigation costs stand at about three-quarters of U.S. defense spending, six times the budget for the U.S. Department of Education and $100 billion more than Americans spent on retail drugs in 2016.

“We have the most expensive civil litigation system in the world,” Rickard said.

The study report authors said they calculated their litigation costs and compensation estimates from an analysis of data on commercial and personal liability insurance premiums, and estimates of the liability exposure of businesses and individuals who are self-insured.

The report noted its authors used data derived from commercial general liability policies, medical malpractice liability insurance, auto liability policies, and personal liability policies, such as homeowners and renters’ insurance.

It further noted the litigation cost burden can vary widely among the states, based on a variety of factors, including the size and nature of a state’s economy, and a state’s specific regulatory and legal environment. For instance, the report noted doctors and other medical practitioners in states with higher health care costs and legal environments skewed toward plaintiffs would likely be required to pay more for medical malpractice insurance, while states that limit the amount plaintiffs can win at trial “would be expected to affect the cost of commercial liability insurance, as well as medical malpractice insurance.”

In California, raw litigation costs as measured in the report stood at nearly $56 billion in 2016. New York’s litigation costs were next largest at $43.7 billion, followed by Texas and Florida at about $33.7 billion each.

Pennsylvania and Illinois then rounded out the list of the six top states with highest litigation costs at about $18 billion each.

The report also compared litigation costs as a share of each state’s GDP.

Florida’s litigation costs topped the list among U.S. states when expressed in that way, checking in at 3.6 percent of the Sunshine State’s economic output. Other states weren’t far behind, however, as litigation costs equated to 3.1 percent of New Jersey’s GDP; 3 percent in Nevada; 2.9 percent in Louisiana, New York, Montana and Rhode Island; and 2.8 percent in West Virginia.

Larger states generally fared better, simply because of the size of their economies, the report’s authors noted, as California – the country’s most populous state and largest state economy – logged litigation cost estimates equal to about 2.1 percent of GDP. In Texas, the country’s second most populous state, litigation costs also equaled about 2.1 percent.

Pennsylvania’s litigation cost burden equated to 2.5 percent of state GDP, while in Illinois the cost share stood at 2.3 percent.

The costs, however, are not solely borne by so-called “big business,” or even the targets of the lawsuits, the study authors said, noting the added costs baked into the U.S. economy from the effect on more expensive insurance policies.

Across the country, that additional cost translated to a burden of about $3,300 per household in 2016.

But those costs also varied widely from state to state, the study said.

In New York, for instance, the per household burden stood at $6,000 in 2016, the study said. Meanwhile, in half the states, the burden stood at less than $3,000 per household.

Other states with high per household litigation cost burdens included New Jersey at $5,550; Delaware, $5,383; Connecticut, $4,574; Florida, $4,442; California, $4,324; Nevada, $4,272; Louisiana, $4,015; Rhode Island, $4,066; Massachusetts, $3,869; and Illinois, $3,738.

In Texas, the burden per household came in at $3,535, the report said.

The added burdens are having real-world impacts, speakers at the ILR conference noted.

Stephen Waguespack, president and CEO of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, said, in his home state, litigation costs have contributed to making Louisiana’s insurance rates the second highest in the nation. And that, he said, has translated into pushing trucking firms and manufacturers, among others, to explore opportunities to transfer their facilities and production to other nearby states.

Waguespack said he hoped the report and similar reports to follow, which could delve more deeply into the questions, can shed more light on the issue, and help voters and consumers better understand how such litigation costs stand as an unofficial “tax” on employers and households.

“Most people think a tort is a pastry, not an issue,” said Waguespack. “This helps break the issue down into understandable, bite-sized chunks.

“It shows how this makes a difference in your life.”

By: Mary Ann Magnell

ONE Brands, sued over the amount of sugar in its line of nutrition bars, says it has been targeted by a professional plaintiff who has never actually eaten one of its products and a law firm that failed in its first try to pursue these allegations.

The company’s motion to dismiss was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Sept. 14 in response to a July lawsuit filed by plaintiff Gloria Hackman, a registered nurse who is referred to her in complaint as a “consumer, and a public health and consumer watchdog in the District.”

“Although captioned as a consumer protection case, this case is nothing of the sort,” said the defendant in its motion to dismiss. “Plaintiff is not a consumer. She did not take a single bite of the ONE Bars that form the basis of her complaint. Instead, she purchased the bars solely to file this suit.”

Hackman, dubbed a “professional plaintiff” by ONE, filed suit against the North Carolina-based company claiming that the bars that she tested, which included ONE Brands Birthday Cake Protein Bar and ONE Brands Almond Bliss Protein Bar, were “laden with sugar despite being marketed as a low-sugar, healthy product.”

According to the complaint, the bars contain “approximately 900 percent to 1,600 percent more sugar than the ‘1 gram of sugar’ represented” on their labels.

In the past, Hackman has sued companies like ALDI, Bayer, Save-A-Lot and Kraft.

“Plaintiff purchased ONE bars as a member of the consumer public,” her complaint says.

“This purchase included the purpose of testing and evaluating whether ONE bars have been unlawfully and deceptively sold…”

Hackman’s lawyers – the D.C. firm Migliaccio and Rathod – filed a similar suit in February, in which ONE Brands alleged that because the case was based on sugar testing that did not comply with federal law, the claims were preempted.

Hackman’s lawyers dropped the suit rather than respond to that claim and two months later filed Hackman’s case.

“Counsel for Plaintiff Ms. Hackman venture once more unto the breach,” the motion says.

In the filing to dismiss Hackman’s suit, ONE Brands claims that the plaintiff has “refused to turn over her testing and does not disclose which laboratory did the test, which methodology it followed, or what type of sugar she tested for.”

The defendant also notes that the complaint “makes clear” that she did not comply with the Federal Drug Administration’s testing protocol.”

In its motion, the defendant claims that the plaintiff’s sugar-content claims are preempted by federal law. Further, it claims she lacks standing and that she has not stated a claim under the D.C. Consumer Protection Procedures Act.