Lottery case
The lottery case is based on a decision of the Federal Court of Justice of May 16, 1974. It is still used today in legal training on the subject of the scope of the will to be legally bound in the case of unpaid assignments.
facts
The defendant and the three plaintiffs had formed a lottery syndicate that typed the same number combination every week. Filling out and submitting the lottery ticket was the responsibility of the defendant. Precisely before a draw, in the course of which the weekly typed numbers of the lottery syndicate were drawn, the defendant failed to fill out the lottery slip. As a result, the lottery syndicate lost a profit totaling DM 10,550 . The plaintiffs thereupon demanded a proportionate amount of damages from the defendant .
Decision of the BGH
The BGH initially left open which exact legal relationships (such as a civil law company ) existed between the members of the lottery community. He emphasized, however, that a contractual obligation must regularly be affirmed insofar as the betting officer has to distribute a profit to the game participants in accordance with the agreement and these in turn are obliged to pay the stakes promised by them to the agent.
In the case presented, however, it was questionable and decisive whether the legal obligation of the agent also extended to the completion and submission of the ticket as agreed. Because in order to be able to violate such an obligation at all, these tasks would first have to have been part of the defendant's contractual obligations.
As a result, the BGH denied a corresponding will to be legally bound. To this end, he put lack of explicit observations of the parties to the legal relationship taking into account the interests of both parties in good faith with regard to the prevailing practice ( § 157 BGB ) from, so took a balance between the interests of the officers and those of the other game player before.
The BGH contrasted the participants' extremely lucky winnings with the high, potentially existence-threatening risk of compensation for the commissioner. Nobody would accept such a risk with their eyesight or expect a teammate to do so. Nor does it correspond to the character of a lottery syndicate, which is based on the motive of experiencing tension and success or failure of the game together. Because gambling also regularly remains a game, "with which a legal obligation and compensation, as is otherwise necessary for the protection of essential interests and goods, would not be compatible".
It should be noted that the balancing of interests carried out by the BGH only applies to the agent acting free of charge. If the gaming officer carries out the lottery for a fee or even commercially, a legal obligation to do so generally corresponds to the will of the party.
Guiding principle
- Official motto: "Anyone who fills out and submits the lottery tickets in a lottery syndicate generally does not assume any legal obligation in this respect."
