Court rules Mo. must pay Powerball ticket

Thursday, May 18, 2006 posted 01:49 AM EDT

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Missouri must pay up on a $100,000 Powerball ticket that the winner's wife found nearly a year after it was purchased, an appeals court ruled.

Paul E. Barnett, of Dyersburg, Tenn., bought the ticket in December 2002, but the family didn't realize it was a winner until his wife discovered it about 11 months later as she was cleaning out his pickup truck.

The lottery's 180-day deadline for claiming prize money had passed, and the state argued it didn't have to pay.

Barnett sued in 2004, and a lower court judge ordered the state to hand over the winnings last year. Tuesday's ruling upheld that decision.

The state appeals court ruled that the deadline was illegally imposed because it was not properly publicized. The claim deadline is printed on the back of the ticket, but the court said it couldn't be enforced because a purchaser would not see that until after buying it.

The 180-day deadline had been in place since 2002. Before that, winners had up to one year to claim their prizes. The court also noted that the Missouri Lottery Commission sometimes paid others claims filed after the 180-day deadline.

"They paid all the little tickets," said Tina Crow Halcomb, Barnett's attorney. "It was the fact that it was $100,000 that made them not pay him."

A spokesman for Attorney General Jay Nixon said Nixon was still reviewing Tuesday's decision and had not decided whether to appeal.

Powerball tickets are sold in 28 states, but the winners redeem their prizes from the states where their tickets were purchased.

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