An Aussie man out of Sydney has tried for 23 years to lay claim to a lottery jackpot worth AU$3.3 million ($2 million), but his legal fight has now run its course. In 1997, David Owen Renshaw purchased a lottery ticket that, according to his subsequent lawsuit, was the big winner. However, his attempts to verify the ticket were thwarted by a store clerk, and the retiree was never able to claim his prize. He finally launched a lawsuit against the New South Wales (NSW) Lotteries eight years later, and, after a lot of legal wrangling, a Supreme Court judge in NSW, 
Des Fagan, has now closed the book on what he dubbed an “irresponsible pursuit of this hopeless claim.”
Renshaw had argued that the store clerk told him the ticket wasn’t a winner, despite the fact that he saw “provisional winner” pop up on the screen when the ticket was scanned. The unidentified clerk had thrown the ticket into the garbage and, when Renshaw tried to question the clerk about the ticket, he allegedly ran away and locked himself in his office. That would be the end of Renshaw’s interaction with the clerk and the multimillion-dollar ticket, until 2016.
It was then that Renshaw was discussing the lost millions with a friend and the two began digging into the jackpot’s status. They learned that the prize had still gone unclaimed, reinvigorating Renshaw’s belief that he had, in fact, been holding the winning ticket. Proving ownership, though, would be an insurmountable task.
Over the years, more than 50 people had tried to claim the prize, but Renshaw was determined. Explaining the time gap between winning and causing a legal ruckus a result of “memory loss” after having suffered an accident while on the job, he dug in and was ready to succeed where everyone else had failed.
Renshaw would have to defend himself in court after he parted ways with a pro bono attorney who had accepted the challenge. An old adage, “The man who is his own lawyer has a fool for his client,” proved appropriate, as Renshaw’s attempts met one brick wall after another. An agreement had been reached to allow “highly confidential data” about the winning ticket to be inspected, but Renshaw chose to fire his lawyer and refuse the recommended action. This forced the case to continue to move forward in court.
The would-be millionaire also refused a settlement offer made by lottery officials. During the course of the continuing litigious exercise, a proposal was presented that would see Renshaw receive money in order to bring the case to a close, but on one condition. He would have to cover the Lottery’s court costs associated with his lawsuit – Renshaw refused.
In the end, the “confidential data” about the actual winning ticket was brought forward for the courts to see. According to that information, Renshaw could not have been the winner, because his description of when and where he purchased the ticket didn’t match with the confidential data. Justice Fagan said in his ruling, “The plaintiff’s narrative taken as a whole is fantastic. It is unbelievable.”
As a result, Renshaw could still be on the hook for court costs incurred by NSW Lotteries. Justice Fagan explained, “Not only have the proceedings been prosecuted by the plaintiff without any reasonable evidentiary basis, they have been conducted by him wastefully and inefficiently. As a self-represented litigant, incurring no cost to himself and having no assets, he has lacked the incentive to exercise caution or to heed legal advice. He has put the defendants to great expense and squandered significant time and capacity of the court.”
