J-A17009-20

2020 PA Super 285

ACME MARKETS, INC.

v.

BEVERLIE R. SELTZER AND 

PENNSYLVANIA LOTTERY 

DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE, 

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

APPEAL OF: BEVERLIE R. SELTZER

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 IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

 PENNSYLVANIA

 No. 3331 EDA 2019

Appeal from the Order Entered November 20, 2019

In the Court of Common Pleas of Bucks County 

Civil Division at No(s): No. 2019-02791

BEFORE: BOWES, J., McCAFFERY, J., and FORD ELLIOTT, P.J.E.

OPINION BY BOWES, J.: FILED DECEMBER 15, 2020

Beverlie R. Seltzer (“Ms. Seltzer”) appeals from the order granting 

summary judgment in favor of Acme Markets, Inc. (“Acme”), and denying her 

cross-motion for summary judgment in this conversion action. We affirm.

The following facts are not in dispute. Acme is a retailer licensed by the 

Pennsylvania Lottery (“the Lottery”) to sell terminal-based tickets at its 

Doylestown, Pennsylvania store. In accordance with the license agreement, 

the Lottery placed a WAVE terminal in the Acme store through which lottery 

tickets are generated via connection to the Lottery’s computer system. The 

terminal generates tickets for the next upcoming drawing, and automatically 

begins printing tickets for the next drawing as soon as one occurs. The Lottery 

keeps tally of each “play” issued through Acme’s WAVE terminal and issues 

daily and weekly reports of the totals. Rather than pay the Lottery for each 
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ticket when it is generated, Acme maintains a back account from which the 

Lottery withdraws each Tuesday the total amount Acme owes for the prior 

week’s transactions, less Acme’s five-percent commission. Of importance to 

the case at bar, Acme must pay for all tickets that it prints from the WAVE 

terminal, less the commission, even if the ticket was printed by mistake and 

Acme was unable to sell it. Acme cannot return these “mistake tickets” to the 

Lottery, and thus it keeps these tickets near the WAVE terminal and attempts 

to sell them to other customers prior to the drawing. Each morning Acme’s 

office coordinator scans any unsold mistake tickets to determine whether any 

are winners for which Acme may collect the prize money.1 The remaining 

mistake tickets are discarded. 

With this background information, we turn to the facts concerning 

ownership of the mistake ticket that is the subject of the instant litigation. 

The trial court summarized those facts as follows:

At about 2:20 p.m. on March 21, 2019, a customer came into the 

Doylestown Acme and requested that the customer service 

representative print or sell five PA Match 6 tickets to him. The 

customer service representative used the lottery terminal to print 

one ticket with five sets of numbers on it. Each set of numbers 

costs a customer $2.00. After reviewing the ticket, the customer 

rejected it and asked the Acme clerk to print five separate tickets 

for him. [The rejected ticket was added to a pile of mistake 

tickets.] . . .

Later in the day, [Ms.] Seltzer, a longtime Acme employee, 

came in for her shift at the customer service desk. The Match 6 

____________________________________________

1 Ms. Seltzer admits that Acme is entitled to redeem mistake tickets. See Ms. 

Seltzer’s Answer to Acme’s Motion for Summary Judgment, 10/15/19, at ¶ 30. 
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drawing occurred at 7:00 p.m. Shortly after the drawing, at 

about 8:04 p.m., [Ms.] Seltzer began scanning the pile of mistake 

tickets[, a practice she had engaged in in the past, when she had 

discarded losing tickets and left winning tickets for the office 

coordinator to process the next morning2]. As she scanned 

through them, she discovered that one of the mistake tickets was 

a winning ticket, in the amount of $4,150,000.00. At this point, 

after learning the ticket was a winner, [instead of leaving the 

ticket for the coordinator to process the next day,] [Ms.] Seltzer 

took $10.00 in cash out of her purse, rang up her own transaction, 

and put the $10.00 in the register in an attempt to purchase the 

ticket. She was still on the clock at the time.

[Ms.] Seltzer never consulted with anyone at Acme before 

attempting to purchase the mistake ticket. [Ms.] Seltzer 

proceeded to tell other employees, including a supervisor, that she 

had won the lottery, though claiming that she could not remember 

the time when she purchased the ticket. No one at Acme 

authorized or approved [Ms.] Seltzer’s taking possession of the 

ticket. She did not tell anyone at Acme the value [of] the ticket 

or the situation surrounding her “purchase” of the ticket. At some 

point thereafter Seltzer signed the back of the winning ticket and 

proceeded to contact the . . . Lottery about claiming her winnings. 

It is not the . . . Lottery’s practice to investigate the bearer of 

winning tickets. Acme received a $10,000 bonus check as a result 

of selling the winning ticket. It would have received this bonus 

whether it had sold the ticket to a customer or retained the ticket 

for itself.

Upon reviewing the security tapes, Acme discovered that 

[Ms.] Seltzer had attempted to purchase the ticket after the 

Match 6 drawing and after she had known it was a winner. Upon 

confronting [Ms.] Seltzer as to this revelation, [she] stated that it 

was her ticket and proceeded to contact the . . . Lottery about 

claiming the reward.

On April 16, 2019[,] Acme filed a complaint in order to 

determine the proper owner of the lottery ticket.[] At that point, 

after a hearing, [the trial court] ordered that the lottery winnings 

be placed in escrow pending the resolution of this case. The 

____________________________________________

2 See Acme’s Motion for Summary Judgment, 9/16/19, at ¶ 130 (citing video 

footage from January and February 2019). 
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parties agreed that once the Lottery paid the proceeds into the 

escrow account, the Lottery would be removed as a party to this 

case. 

Trial Court Opinion (Corrected), 1/24/20, at 1-3 (unnecessary quotation 

marks and capitalization omitted, emphases in original). 

Acme and Ms. Seltzer filed cross-motions for summary judgment. Acme 

asserted that resolution of the dispute3 hinged upon the answers to the 

following questions: (a) whether Acme had a property interest in the mistake 

ticket at the time Ms. Seltzer scanned it , and (b) whether Ms. Seltzer, acting 

in her capacity as an Acme employee, engaged in an unauthorized sale of the 

ticket to herself in her individual capacity. See Acme’s Motion for Summary 

Judgment, 916/19, at 33. 

Acme posited that it had a valid property interest in the mistake ticket 

because the moment it was delivered to Acme via the WAVE terminal, Acme 

became obligated to pay the Lottery for that ticket regardless of whether it 

sold it to a third party. Id. at 33. As for the second question, Acme contended 

that two independent bases rendered the sale of the ticket unauthorized, 

namely: (1) because Ms. Seltzer, who was acting as the agent of Acme when 

she sold the ticket to herself, did not disclose all pertinent facts to Acme and 

obtain its informed consent as is required by the principles of agency law; and 

____________________________________________

3 Acme stated counts of declaratory relief and conversion. See Amended 

Complaint, 5/28/19, at 13. 
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(2) Acme is not authorized to sell a lottery ticket to a customer after 

ascertaining whether it is a winning ticket. Id. at 33-34. 

Ms. Seltzer, on the other hand, maintained that Acme had failed to 

adduce sufficient evidence to establish that it had a property right in the ticket. 

She asserted that provisions of the Pennsylvania Lottery Code establish that 

a ticket is a bearer instrument deemed to be owned by its possessor, and that 

the ticket itself is the only valid receipt for claiming a prize. See Ms. Seltzer’s 

Motion for Summary Judgment, 9/16/19, at 14 (citing, inter alia, 61 Pa. Code 

§ 875.9(a)). She further argued that Acme’s interest in mistake tickets is that 

of a licensee of the Lottery until Acme delivers funds for the unsold tickets as 

part of its weekly reconciliation each Tuesday. Thus, Ms. Seltzer asserts, since

she paid Acme for the ticket before Acme made its weekly reconciliation 

payment to the Lottery for that ticket, she acquired superior title. Id. at 15-

17. 

After reading the parties’ filings and entertaining oral argument, the trial 

court took the matter under advisement. On November 20, 2019,4the court 

entered an order granting Acme’s motion for summary judgment, denying Ms. 

Seltzer’s cross-motion, declaring Acme to be the rightful owner of the mistake

ticket, entering judgment in favor of Acme, and directing the escrow agent to 

pay the full amount of the escrow fund to Acme. See Order, 11/20/19. 

____________________________________________

4 The order is dated November 15, 2019, but was not filed until November 20, 

2019. 
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Seltzer filed a notice of appeal the following day, and both Seltzer and the trial 

court complied with Pa.R.A.P. 1925.

Ms. Seltzer presents the following questions for this Court’s 

consideration:

1. Did the trial court err in applying the Uniform 

Commercial Code, not the State Lottery Law and its regulations, 

to decide ownership of the lottery ticket at issue in this case, when 

the Commercial Code does not apply to lottery tickets and the 

State Lottery Law is a specific and complete statute and its 

regulations offer two different bases to decide ownership of the 

lottery ticket?

2. Did the trial court determine the impact of Acme’s 

relationship as agent, licensee, and fiduciary of the Pennsylvania 

Lottery—according to statute and contract—on the question of 

ownership?

3. Did the trial court err in in [sic] concluding that Acme 

had a superior right to the ticket, even though there is no 

authority prohibiting [Ms.5]. Seltzer from paying for an unsold 

mistake ticket left on the counter of the lottery terminal after a 

drawing and Acme kept her money?

4. Did the trial court err in granting Acme’s motion [for] 

summary judgment when there are genuine disputes of material 

fact as to the remaining elements of conversion—consent and 

justification—and [Ms.] Seltzer’s estoppel defense?

Ms. Seltzer’s brief at 6-7.

We begin with our standard of review. 

An appellate court may reverse a grant of summary judgment if 

there has been an error of law or an abuse of discretion. Summary 

judgment is appropriate only in those cases where the record 

clearly demonstrates that there is no genuine issue of material 

____________________________________________

5 “Ms.” and Mrs.” are used interchangeably in Ms. Seltzer’s brief. We have 

opted to use “Ms.” uniformly for the sake of consistency. 
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fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter 

of law. The trial court must take all facts of record and reasonable 

inferences therefrom in a light most favorable to the non-moving 

party. In so doing, the trial court must resolve all doubts as to 

the existence of a genuine issue of material fact against the 

moving party, and, thus, may only grant summary judgment 

where the right to such judgment is clear and free from all doubt. 

Because the issue here, namely whether there are genuine issues 

of material fact, is a question of law, our standard of review is de 

novo and our scope of review is plenary.

In re Risperdal Litig., 223 A.3d 633, 639 (Pa. 2019) (cleaned up). 

The trial court held that the undisputed facts established Acme’s right 

to judgment as a matter of law on its conversion claim. Conversion is “the 

deprivation of another’s right of property in, or use or possession of, a chattel, 

or other interference therewith, without the owner’s consent and without 

lawful justification.” Spector Gadon & Rosen, P.C. v. Rudinski, Orso & 

Lynch, 231 A.3d 923, 925 (Pa.Super. 2020) (internal quotation marks 

omitted). Hence, to affirm the trial court’s judgment, we must conclude that 

the certified record is clear and free from doubt that Acme was the owner of 

the mistake ticket at the time Ms. Seltzer took possession of it, and that Ms. 

Seltzer took possession without justification or Acme’s consent. 

Ms. Seltzer’s first two questions challenge Acme’s ownership of the 

ticket. Specifically, Ms. Seltzer argues that Pennsylvania’s Lottery Code 

provides the only valid basis for determining the ownership of a ticket printed 

from a terminal by mistake, and that the trial court erred by looking to bases 
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outside the Code to adjudicate the issue. The parties agree that this case 

presents issues of first impression in Pennsylvania law.6 

The trial court accepted Acme’s argument that it became the owner of 

each ticket printed from the WAVE terminal at the moment of printing, and 

____________________________________________

6 We have not found another case in any jurisdiction in which a court resolved 

an ownership dispute between a retailer who was unable to sell a mistake 

ticket before a lottery drawing, and an employee who purchased it after 

learning that it was a winner. Indeed, we are aware of only one other instance 

in which this fact pattern arose. In Parsons v. Dacy, 502 N.W.2d 108 (S.D. 

1993), Robin Parsons printed a ticket while working for Mr. G’s convenience 

store for a customer who refused to pay for it. She left it on the terminal for 

another employee to sell, but it was not sold before the drawing. The following 

morning, another Mr. G’s employee, Ionia Klein noticed the ticket. She

determined that it had hit for over $12 million, signed the ticket, and 

presented it to the South Dakota Lottery Commission, which declared Klein to 

be the winner. The Dacys, owners of Mr. G’s, litigated against Klein. Parsons 

sued both the Dacys and Klein, contending that she had acquired a property 

interest in the ticket when the customer declined to buy it because it was Mr. 

G’s policy to make the employee who printed the mistake ticket bear the loss. 

The Parsons Court affirmed the trial court’s ruling that Parsons failed to 

produce evidence that Mr. G’s had any such policy. See Parsons, supra at 

111. The Court noted in that decision that the litigation between Klein and 

the Dacys had settled prior to an adjudication of their competing claims of 

ownership of the mistake ticket. 

Ms. Seltzer cites and relies upon Parsons as supportive of her position in the 

instant case. See Ms. Seltzer’s brief at 55-56 (suggesting that the Parsons

Court affirmed the entry of judgment in favor of an employee who purchased 

a mistake ticket after learning it was a winner). See also Ms. Seltzer’s Motion 

for Summary Judgment, 9/16/19, at 14 (same). However, as the above 

summary makes clear, Parsons did not decide that an employee may acquire 

superior title to the winning mistake ticket by purchasing it after the drawing 

and after learning that it was a winner. As such, although the basic facts of 

that case are similar to those of the case sub judice, the legal issue before us 

was not adjudicated in Parsons, and the decision in no way supports Ms. 

Seltzer’s claim of ownership or otherwise aids in our resolution of this appeal.
J-A17009-20

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that Acme retained ownership of each such mistake ticket that it failed to resell to a customer prior to the drawing. See Trial Court Opinion (Corrected), 

1/24/20, at 4. Acme’s position is premised on its contract with the Lottery

and the Pennsylvania Code provisions governing the Lottery (“Lottery Code”). 

The contract terms contained in Acme’s application for a lottery retailer 

license provide that all tickets received by Acme from the Lottery “are deemed 

to have been purchased by” Acme. See Acme’s Memorandum of Law, 

10/16/19, at Exhibit 1 (¶ 5 of unnumbered page 4). As noted above, tickets 

printed from a WAVE terminal may not be returned or refunded under any 

circumstances. See 61 Pa. Code § 875.8(b) (“A terminal-based lottery game 

ticket may not be canceled or voided once printed by the Lottery terminal, 

even if the terminal-based lottery game ticket is printed in error.”). Instead, 

the moment the Lottery delivers a ticket to Acme through the WAVE terminal, 

Acme incurs immediate financial liability for the retail price of the ticket, less 

its five-percent commission. See Deposition of James W. Sawyer, Jr.,7

8/15/19, at 76-77. Rather than satisfy its payment obligation separately for 

each transaction, the individual sales are accumulated by the Lottery for a 

week at a time and withdrawn from Acme’s bank account each Tuesday. Id. 

at 77.

____________________________________________

7 Mr. Sawyer is the individual who signed the verification for the Lottery’s 

answer to Acme’s complaint as its acting director of security. See Answer, 

5/6/19, at 10 (pagination supplied). 
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Based upon these regulations and contract provisions, Acme asserted, 

and the trial court agreed, that Acme became the owner of the mistake ticket 

as soon as it was printed. Ms. Seltzer maintains that this holding is erroneous. 

Specifically, she contends that the Lottery Code both supplies the sole 

authority for proving ownership of a lottery ticket and establishes that licensee 

retailers cannot take title to any lottery tickets until the aforementioned 

weekly settlement date. 

Ms. Seltzer relies upon 61 Pa. Code §§ 875.8(a) and 875.9(a) as the 

sole authority governing ownership of a lottery ticket under Pennsylvania law. 

The former provides, inter alia: “[t]he terminal-based lottery game ticket shall 

be the only valid proof of the bet placed, and the only valid receipt for claiming 

a prize.” 61 Pa. Code § 875.8. Section 875.9 concomitantly provides as 

follows: 

A terminal-based lottery game ticket is a bearer document 

deemed to be owned by the person holding the terminal-based 

lottery game ticket, except that if a name is contained on the back 

of the terminal-based lottery game ticket, the person so named 

will, for all purposes, be considered the owner of the terminalbased lottery game ticket.

61 Pa. Code § 875.9(a). 

When this litigation commenced, Acme was neither the bearer of the 

ticket nor had it placed its name on the back of the ticket. Rather, it is 

undisputed that Ms. Seltzer rang up the ticket purchase, placed $10.00 of her 

own money in the cash register, took possession of the ticket, signed the back 

of it, and submitted it to the Lottery for redemption. Consequently, Ms. 
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Seltzer claims the clear language of the Lottery Code declares that she, not 

Acme, was the owner of the ticket as a matter of law. See Ms. Seltzer’s brief 

at 42-43. 

Ms. Seltzer notes that Acme’s contract with the Lottery provides that 

Acme “acts in a fiduciary capacity for the Department of Revenue until 

[proceeds of sales of lottery tickets] are received by the Department 

as required.” Ms. Seltzer’s brief at 48 (cleaned up; emphasis in source cited)

(citing Acme’s Exhibit 2 (Agreement of Sales of Pennsylvania Lottery Tickets)). 

The funds for the mistake ticket were not received by the Department “until 

the following Tuesday, five days after Ms. Seltzer rang up her lottery purchase,

placed $10.00 in the register, and took possession of the ticket.” Id. Ms. 

Seltzer also points to 61 Pa. Code § 809.11, which states that “[t]ickets that 

are not accounted for by the agent on the settlement date, regardless of the 

reason, shall be deemed sold to the agent.” Based upon these provisions, Ms. 

Seltzer concludes, “Acme continued to act in a fiduciary capacity for the

Lottery and had no independent right of possession in the mistake ticket 

unless and until the ticket remained unaccounted for by Acme on the 

settlement date the following Tuesday.” Ms. Seltzer’s brief at 48-49. 

Ms. Seltzer complains that Acme’s position that it owns a ticket once it 

is printed by the WAVE terminal “simply does not make sense in the Lottery’s 

statutory and regulatory scheme.” Id. at 50. She notes that Acme makes no 

account of when mistake tickets are generated, and the Lottery has no record 
J-A17009-20

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of when mistake tickets are sold to customers. Id. at 50-51. Ms. Seltzer’s 

argument continues:

There is a time discrepancy between ticket generation and ticket 

sale that does not exist for lottery sales in which a customer 

immediately takes possession of a ticket. Acme employees are 

encouraged to sell mistake tickets—which necessarily occurs later

than the customer request which led to the generation of the

mistake ticket. Here, Acme runs headfirst into one of the

regulations upon which it chooses to rely: that all ticket sales shall 

be final and no ticket returns shall be accepted by any agent. If 

the Lottery makes a sale to Acme, then that sale too is final. In 

other words, if Acme is truly sold a lottery ticket, then it cannot 

resell mistake tickets at all. Accordingly, Acme’s argument does 

not comport with the regulations or widespread lottery practice. 

The only conclusion is that Acme does not, and cannot, own 

mistake tickets as soon as they are generated. 

Taken to its logical conclusion, Acme could print tickets and

refuse to sell them, expecting the tickets to revert to Acme without 

any exchange of money. Indeed, Acme seems to believe that it 

does not need to sell tickets at all: in its motion for summary 

judgment, it asserted as undisputed that the Lottery relinquishes 

control of the ticket to Acme, to be kept and claimed by Acme or 

resold to its customers. Under Acme’s position, there is no need 

for a game of chance—a retailer can keep and claim all tickets for 

itself. Indeed, it would be in Acme’s interest to keep and claim 

tickets anytime the prize for a lottery game is so great that it has 

positive expected value. Such a position would call the 

Pennsylvania Lottery into question.

Id. at 50-52 (cleaned up).

Hence, Ms. Seltzer argues that because she purchased the mistake 

ticket before Acme delivered funds for it to the Department of Revenue, and 

she had possession of the ticket, which bore her name on the back, the Lottery 

Code mandates that she be recognized as the owner of the ticket.
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We find Ms. Seltzer’s legal arguments to be devoid of merit. We first 

reject her nonsensical musings that adopting Acme’s position would destroy 

the integrity of the Pennsylvania Lottery. The delay between the generation 

of tickets and reconciling those transactions with the Department does not 

afford a retailer an opportunity to pay only for winning tickets. Nor does it 

provide any better chance of purchasing a winner than a customer who pays 

for her chances up front. Acme and all retailers are eventually responsible for 

paying for each ticket they print, whether it is a winner or a loser. The odds 

of actually winning, and the financial repercussions of printing a ticket that 

does not win, are exactly the same no matter when the ticket price is paid to 

the Lottery. 

Boiled down to its essence, Ms. Seltzer’s claim hinges upon the

acceptance of two principles: (1) that the Lottery Code’s deeming of the 

bearer of a ticket to be its owner establishes ownership not only in the eyes 

of the Lottery, but for all purposes; and (2) that Acme acquires no ownership 

interest in any ticket unless it remains in possession of the ticket until the 

Lottery withdraws the funds for it the following Tuesday. We reject both.

Ms. Seltzer bases her claim that the Lottery Code is the sole arbiter of 

all aspects of lottery tickets upon 72 P.S. § 3761-310. That statute states: 

“No other law providing any penalty or disability for the sale of lottery tickets 

or shares or any acts done in connection with a lottery shall apply to the sale 

of tickets or shares or acts performed pursuant to this chapter.” 72 P.S. 
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§ 3761-310. This statute does not, as Ms. Seltzer suggests, indicate that 

other law cannot be applied to adjudicating disputes over the ownership of a 

ticket or entitlement to proceeds from its winnings. Rather, this statute clearly 

means that the Commonwealth’s anti-gaming laws do not apply to the staterun lottery. Indeed, ownership of lottery tickets or proceeds have long been 

adjudicated pursuant to generally-applicable laws. See, e.g., Nuhfer v. 

Nuhfer, 599 A.2d 1348, 1349 (Pa.Super. 1991) (holding husband had an 

ownership interest in a ticket possessed by a co-worker and affirming that the 

proceeds were marital property subject to equitable distribution). 

Further, the Lottery deems the bearer of a ticket to be its owner to make 

it clear to whom the Lottery will pay winnings. There is no indication that the 

provision exists for any purpose other than keeping the Lottery out of the 

business of adjudicating ownership disputes, or that any other person or entity 

is obligated by the Lottery Code to deem the holder of the ticket to be the 

rightful owner of the prize money. While 61 Pa. Code § 875.9(a) arguably

prevents a court from directing the Lottery to pay winnings to someone other 

than the bearer of the ticket, it does not deprive a court of the authority to 

determine who is entitled to those funds once they leave the Lottery’s 

possession. Accord Estate of Benyo v. Breidenbach, 233 A.3d 774, 781 

(Pa. 2020) (holding that statute providing that municipal employee pension 

funds were payable only to the designated beneficiary and were not subject 

to garnishment or other legal processes applies “only to pension funds that 
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remain in the possession of the plan administrator,” and does not prevent a 

court from directing the disposition of the funds after they leave the 

possession of the pension administrator). 

Therefore, we hold that the Lottery Code provision viewing the bearer 

of a terminal-based ticket as the owner does not defeat Acme’s ownership 

claim. Nor do we find the fact that Acme did not deliver the funds for the 

ticket to the Lottery before Ms. Seltzer took possession of the mistake ticket 

to be determinative of the ownership issue. 

Ms. Seltzer’s opposition to Acme’s claim of ownership in its motion for 

summary judgment was largely based upon the fact that she paid for and took 

possession of the ticket before Acme’s weekly settlement with the Lottery, and 

the Code provides that tickets that are unaccounted for at the settlement date 

“shall be deemed sold to the agent.” 61 Pa. Code § 809.11. See Ms. Seltzer’s 

Answer to Acme’s Motion for Summary Judgment, 10/15/19, at ¶¶ 212, 234, 

238. She contends that this means that Acme does not acquire an ownership 

in mistake tickets until the settlement date. 

Acme responds that this section of the Code does not control, as it 

predates the existence of terminal-based games, and was enacted to govern 

scratch-off tickets, which, unlike WAVE-generated tickets, may be returned to 

the Lottery under certain circumstances. See Acme’s brief at 45-50. We 

agree.
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Chapter 809 was adopted in 1972 to govern the “consignment” of tickets 

to “agents” from banks. It indicates that “banks shall allocate lottery tickets 

to agents and shall collect tickets which the agents have not sold.” 61 Pa.Code 

§ 809.21. These unsold tickets in certain circumstances may be “returned to 

the bank from which they were obtained.” Id. at § 807.3. Unless the tickets 

are properly returned within the time specified, “[a]ll tickets accepted by an 

agent from the State lottery or its authorized representatives shall be deemed 

to have been purchased by the agent[.]” Id. Further, “[t]he agent shall be 

responsible for lost or missing tickets or loose tickets not returned in 

sequential order.” Id. This last provision is cross-referenced in the section 

relied upon by Ms. Seltzer, which provides in full: “Tickets that are not 

accounted for by the agent on the settlement date, regardless of the reason, 

shall be deemed sold to the agent. Reference should be made to § 807.3 

(relating to agents responsible for tickets).” Id. at § 809.11.

It is undisputed that tickets printed from a WAVE terminal, such as the 

one at issue in this appeal, are sold by “retailers,” 61 Pa. Code § 875.6, and 

may not be returned under any circumstances. See 61 Pa. Code § 875.8(b) 

(“A terminal-based lottery game ticket may not be canceled or voided once 

printed by the Lottery terminal, even if the terminal-based lottery game ticket 

is printed in error.”). As discussed at length above, as soon as Acme prints a

ticket through the WAVE terminal, it is obligated to pay the Lottery the retail 

price of the ticket, less its five-percent commission, regardless of whether it 
J-A17009-20

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ultimately sells the ticket to a customer or otherwise accounts for it . See

Deposition of James W. Sawyer, Jr., 8/15/19, at 76-77. 

Contrary to Ms. Seltzer’s arguments, the mere fact that the Lottery did 

not ask Acme to fulfill its obligation to pay for the mistake ticket before the 

weekly reconciliation date established by the contract does not indicate that 

Acme did not own the ticket until the following Tuesday. Pursuant to its license 

agreement, the Lottery looks solely to Acme to pay for each ticket that it 

prints, and Acme fully bears the loss of non-payment by the customer who 

requested it. Accordingly, Acme does not act as a mere conduit through which 

the Lottery sells tickets to third-party customers, but, rather, Acme purchases 

the tickets from the Lottery. See Williams & Co. v. Sch. Dist. of 

Pittsburgh, 244 A.2d 37, 39 (Pa. 1968) (holding company purchased 

products from supplier and resold them to the ultimate consumer, rather than 

having been a mere conduit of a sale from the supplier to the consumer, where 

the supplier looked only to the company for nonpayment, and the company 

bore the risk of nonpayment by the consumer). Therefore, we agree with the 

trial court’s holding that Acme “owns the ticket as soon as it is printed, unless 

and until it is resold to a customer.” Trial Court Opinion (Corrected), 1/24/20, 

at 4. 

In her next issue, Ms. Seltzer argues that even if Acme did have an 

ownership interest in the ticket, she nonetheless acquired a superior interest. 

She argues that Acme “lost” the mistake ticket through its “refusal to 
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safeguard the ticket after it was rejected by the customer.” Ms. Seltzer’s brief 

at 52-53. She suggests that Acme was negligent or reckless in its possession 

of the ticket because it made no accounting for mistake tickets and did not 

lock them away in a safe or a drawer. Id. 

It is undisputed that mistake tickets, including the one at issue herein, 

are kept on the WAVE terminal behind the customer service desk in the 

customer service area of the store. See Ms. Seltzer’s Answer to Acme’s Motion 

for Summary Judgment, 10/15/19, at ¶ 66. Ms. Seltzer might have a plausible 

argument if it were a customer who “found” the ticket there and believed it to 

be lost. Plainly, that is not the case. As Acme aptly notes, Ms. Seltzer was 

acting within the scope of her employment when she “found” the ticket:

[Ms.] Seltzer did not find the Match 6 lottery ticket on the street; 

she “found” the ticket under the WAVE terminal monitor, the exact 

location where she and other Acme associates kept mistake 

tickets. Thus, even if it can be argued that Acme “lost” the ticket 

on its own countertop—which in itself seems implausible—[Ms.] 

Seltzer “found” the ticket not in her personal capacity, but as 

Acme’s agent. Moreover, under [Ms.] Seltzer’s logic, every piece 

of merchandise behind the walled portion of the Acme customer 

service desk—cigarettes, etc.—may be “found” and claimed by 

any Acme associate. 

Acme’s brief at 56 (citations omitted). 

Moreover, even if Acme more diligently protected the mistake tickets by 

requiring its employees like Ms. Seltzer to lock them away, those employees 

would have had the same access to them as they did when they were on the 

WAVE terminal. We are utterly unpersuaded by Ms. Seltzer’s contention that 
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Acme lost the ticket by failing to take greater steps to prevent her from 

“finding” it. 

Ms. Seltzer also argues that the mistake ticket was the abandoned 

property of the customer who declined to pay for it after it was printed at his 

request, and that she acquired title to it when she took it off of the terminal 

later that evening. See Ms. Seltzer’s brief at 54-55. As we have concluded 

that Acme purchased the ticket from the Lottery when it was printed, and the 

customer rejected Acme’s offer to sell it to him, the customer never owned 

the property, and therefore lacked the ability to abandon it. 

Consequently, we agree with the trial court that Acme established as a 

matter of law the first element of its conversion claim—that Acme was the 

owner of the mistake ticket at the time Ms. Seltzer took possession of it. Ms. 

Seltzer’s final argument on appeal attacks the remaining elements of 

conversion, claiming that there were issues of fact whether she took 

possession without justification or Acme’s consent. See Ms. Seltzer’s brief at 

56-59. Ms. Seltzer waived this issue.

At a pretrial conference, counsel for both parties represented to the trial 

court that they believed the litigation would be resolved by the court’s ruling 

on the motions, as there were no factual disputes. See N.T. Argument, 

11/12/19, at 2. After reviewing the motions, the trial court agreed and 

advised the parties to appear for argument rather than trial. Id. at 3. At 

argument, the court stated its understanding of the undisputed material facts 
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relevant to the legal question before it. When the court asked the parties if 

they had any additions or corrections, Ms. Seltzer mentioned Acme’s lack of 

internal policies and procedures regarding handling of mistake tickets, 

suggesting that the court may have declined to reference them because they 

were disputed. Id. at 6-7. The court expressed its opinion that those facts 

were not relevant, but reiterated that “if either side thinks that there’s a fact 

that is relevant that is disputed, then we have to have a trial.” Id. at 7. Ms. 

Seltzer did not assert that a trial was necessary after all, or argue that the 

court’s relevance analysis was incorrect. Therefore, the trial court proceeded 

with oral argument rather than trial “[w]ith those facts [previously stated] and 

the agreement of counsel[.]” Id. at 9. 

The certified record thus reveals that Ms. Seltzer affirmatively 

represented to the court that no trial was necessary, failed to object to the 

court’s indication that the additional facts were not relevant, and again 

declined to indicate that the matter should be decided by a trial rather than 

summary proceedings. Hence, we conclude that Ms. Seltzer has waived any 

claim that disputed issues of material fact precluded the entry of summary 

judgment in this case. See also Harber Philadelphia Ctr. City Office Ltd. 

v. LPCI Ltd. P’ship, 764 A.2d 1100, 1105 (Pa.Super. 2000) (“Because Harber 

failed to raise the grounds before the trial court that it seeks to advance here, 

we declare that Harber has waived its first challenge to the order granting 

summary judgment.”). 
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In arguing against waiver, Ms. Seltzer asserts that her position was that 

her “estoppel defense” need not be reached because Acme did not own the 

ticket, and “if the [c]ourt decided that Acme did indeed own the property, then 

the trial court needed to proceed to a trial.” Ms. Seltzer’s reply brief at 32-

33. She cites many instances in the record where she raised her defense prior 

to the pretrial conference and oral argument discussed infra. Id. at 32. 

However, she offers no citation for having presented her if-then position to 

the trial court after agreeing to proceed with summary judgment proceedings 

in lieu of a trial. Accordingly, her argument, raised for the first time on appeal, 

is waived. See Pa.R.A.P. 302(a) (“Issues not raised in the trial court are 

waived and cannot be raised for the first time on appeal.”). 

Even assuming, arguendo, that the issue were not waived, we would 

hold that her defense is unavailing. Ms. Seltzer claims that she was justified 

in believing that she was permitted to do what she did because (1) Acme 

employees are permitted to purchase mistake tickets; (2) other Acme 

employees participated in lottery ticket pools during their shifts; (3) at least 

one customer telephoned in requests for tickets and retrieved and paid for 

them after the drawing;8 and (4) Acme has no procedure for handling mistake 

____________________________________________

8 A customer who played the lottery daily would at times play his numbers by 

calling them in to the Acme customer service before the drawing and would 

pick up and pay for the tickets afterwards. He never conditioned payment 

upon winning. See Deposition of Ms. Seltzer, 7/11/19, at 148-49. Acme has 

put an end to this practice. 
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tickets after a drawing other than leaving them by the terminal for the office 

coordinator to process the next morning. See Ms. Seltzer’s brief at 57-58. 

Since “Acme made no effort to disabuse its employees of these practices at 

the time Ms. Seltzer worked behind the customer service desk,” Ms. Seltzer 

contends that there were factual issues as to whether Acme could prove that 

she took possession of the ticket without Acme’s consent and without 

justification. Id. at 58.

Notably absent from the evidence of practices Acme tolerated is a single 

instance of Acme permitting an employee or anyone else to make a postdrawing purchase of a mistake ticket after its post-drawing value had 

been ascertained. As the trial court aptly observed, “it is simply absurd for 

[Ms.] Seltzer to essentially argue that Acme would have willingly sold a ticket 

worth $4,150,000 for $10[.]” Trial Court Opinion (Corrected), 1/24/20, at 10. 

Indeed, Ms. Seltzer acknowledged that no Acme representative would sell a 

ticket to a customer after ascertaining its post-drawing value, and that she 

herself had never done so. Further, every other time she had scanned mistake 

tickets after a drawing, she discarded the losers and kept the winners for Acme 

to claim. See Deposition of Ms. Seltzer, 7/11/19, at 141-42, 149, 152. When 

Ms. Seltzer in this instance deviated from the Acme procedures that she 

usually followed, she acted surreptitiously and was not forthcoming about the 

circumstances of the purchase. See Acme’s Motion for Summary Judgment, 
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9/15/19, at ¶¶ 143-154 and Ms. Seltzer’s Response, 10/15/19, at ¶¶ 143-154 

(admitting Acme’s allegations).

Even viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Ms. Seltzer, no 

reasonable fact-finder could conclude that Ms. Seltzer acted with the goodfaith belief that she was permitted by law or by Acme’s policies to give Acme 

$10 in exchange for $4,150,000. Hence, the trial court committed no error of 

law or abuse of discretion in holding that Acme was entitled to judgment as a 

matter of law. See In re Risperdal Litig., supra at 639. 

Order affirmed. 

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.

Prothonotary

Date: 12/15/2020