Winners and Losers

It is beyond sad when members of a family become estranged from each other. Sometimes these disagreements are based on slights, perceived or real, and sometimes they are based on incidents which have occurred serious enough to cause a breach in family trust and solidarity. Whatever the reason, the results are that people who should have much in common with one another find themselves completely disinterested in furthering their relationship.

Which appears to have been what had occurred with a Lebanese family living in Ottawa. Where one sibling in a family of several brothers and a sister won an immense lottery jackpot, which he shared with a close friend; they had achieved their dream of hitting it big, after decades of sharing a lottery ticket between them, and finally anticipating sharing a huge win with one another. The win by Sam Haddad engendered a situation of envy and greed.

"We pursued what we believed was right. We did that reluctantly at the beginning, but we were forced into it by the attitude of (Haddad), who did not really accept any responsibility, rejected us, told (us) that we were hungry for money", said George Nahas, husband of lottery winner Sam Haddad's sister, Leila Nahas.

After Sam Haddad discovered that he had the winning ticket to a lottery which he shared with his friend of long standing, his barber, his sister Leila, evidently angered that he had given her a trifling amount, relatively speaking, in comparison to what he had spared for their brothers after his big win, appeared to have concocted a story about her having put $1 into the $3 lottery ticket purchase. That being the case, she insisted that she was eligible for one-third of the $32-million jackpot her brother and his barber-friend had won.

Her claim was rejected outright by her brother, and obviously by her brother's friend. They both scorned her attempt to extort from them money that she had no legal right to claim. She had dragged her insistence of entitlement to one-third of the winnings through the court system, and it had taken five years to come to a conclusion. "Enjoy my money", she called out bitterly to those family members who supported her brother.

This, after Superior Court Judge Robert Beaudoin emphatically concluded that her story was "simply not plausible". Leila Nahas, according to the judge, had completely failed in her attempt to 'prove' any of the critical claims in her story of entitlement.She claimed to have given her brother $1, written down the numbers on a small piece of paper, and placed it in her wallet.

"To believe that she could have written down a lottery number on a Friday that involved a share in a $32-million lottery ticket with her brother and his partner, then know by the following Monday, three days later, that her brother and the barber had won that very same big jackpot, and also know the winning numbers either that day or the next day at the latest, and not question herself as to whether or not that might be the very same ticket she claimed to have a share in, defies common sense", said the judge.

"What is more disturbing, she discarded the wallet, a significant piece of evidence, in December 2010, almost one year after she commenced litigation", he added. To return to the beginning of this sad and sordid family saga, Mr. Haddad had given his brothers a larger share of his winnings than the paltry $25,000 he had allotted to his sister, and which incident made her quite aggrieved. "Her unhappiness with her unequal treatment is one other possible answer as to why she might have pursued this claim", observed the judge.

The barber, Mike Dettorre, who had shared lottery tickets with Sam Haddad for more than three decades, corroborated his friend's story about when the bought the ticket, giving it to the barber; yet another of hundreds of such lottery tickets they had bought together over a 34-year-span. Sam Haddad is now seeking legal costs which could amount to $100,000 or more, from his sister.

"This action has divided a once-proud family. This trial is over, but angry feelings will haunt this family for the foreseeable future", said the judge. "The family's split", said Sam Haddad. As far as he is concerned, his younger sister "doesn't exist". And more's the pity.

Perhaps if he had been more generous in his distribution of his newfound wealth -- after all half of the winnings were his, and $16-million is a whole lot of money. He could easily have given each of his siblings $1-million each, and never missed it, detracted from the total still left. His spirit of generosity could have mollified the injured feelings and greed his sister felt, and avoided this whole unfortunate episode, straining and staining their lives and their futures.

Pity, that. Mutual mean-spiritedness, and spite.