Legal News

?No Deal? for Georgia Game-Show Plaintiffs

By Ashby Jones

The one time we watched “Deal or No Deal,” we honestly found it too stressful and suspenseful to sit through, vowing, after watching some poor guy sweat through one agonizing decision after another, never to watch again.

But we know lots of people who do watch. And apparently lots of fans have played an offshoot of the game, called the “Lucky Case Game,” in which viewers, through their cell phones, try to pick a lucky suitcase and win mad money.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Georgia put a stop to a putative class action on behalf of several “Lucky Case Game” participants. The contestants claimed that the game, which requires a 99-cent charge to play, violated a “colonial-era” Georgia law allowing gamblers to recover their losses through lawsuits. Here’s the story, from the Fulton County Daily Report.

In a unanimous opinion, the state high court rejected the plaintiffs’ reading of the gambling recovery statute, holding that the plaintiffs needed to allege there was a “gambling contract” supported by “gambling consideration.” A gambling contract is one in which the parties agree they will gain or lose depending upon the occurrence of an event in which they otherwise have no interest, explained the court. But here, the 99 cent consideration of the contract between the parties “never hangs in the balance.”

The ruling appears to put a stop to the federal lawsuit filed last summer. (The federal district judge, William C. O’Kelley, had turned to the Georgia Supremes for help in interpreting the statute.) “I believe the court’s opinion marks the end of the federal lawsuit,” said J. Clay Fuller, one of the lawyers who represented the plaintiffs in the case.

L. Joseph Loveland Jr. of King & Spalding argued the case for defendants NBC Universal.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on April 22, 2008 (boomark / email).