A country is also made through its traditions. Among those that make ours, without a doubt the New Year’s Eve Gordo takes its place. However, there are not many court cases in which they end up being the subject of litigation.
In the city of Florida, a business called on neighbors to participate in the year-end lottery. For that, the trade organized a collective: that is, against the payment of a price, the trade offered participation in two issues of the big year-end, both numbers whose photocopy exhibited to the public.
One of those two numbers was awarded in the lottery. But when the neighbors -participants in the winning number- went to claim their prize, lo and behold, the trade had not bought the number: of the two numbers offered, it turned out that it had only bought one (not precisely the favored one).
The matter ended up in Justice. The neighbors who had participated in the winning number, understood that the behavior of the trade had been at least negligent: before closing the deadline for the final draw, the trade should have procured the original numbers of the collective that had organized and whose shares had already been alienated.
The case reached our Supreme Court of Justice, which sided with the plaintiffs. In the opinion of our highest court, the trade was obliged to organize the collective, acquire the specific number and register the participation in the lottery. If a neighbor is shown a photocopy of a number, it is reasonable to assume that the bidder already has what he offers or at least that he will have it. And even if it hadn’t been, the organizers repeatedly had the opportunity to get the missing number; they didn’t. That is their breach of contract, and for it they must respond.
