contract-law lotteries gift mutual-mistake
In beer can lottery who gets to keep the prize? Buyer or person who opened the can? Does mutual mistake rule applies to gifts?
<p>I have an interesting situation on my facebook wall.</p>
<p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/V0uKv.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/V0uKv.png" alt="enter image description here" /></a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Take ten beers to a friend's house. One wins a motor.</p>
<p>Whose? Yours or friend's?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Basically in Cambodia there's a beer lottery you open a can and you can win another beer or money or motorbike. As far as I can tell guy brought 10 cans of beer to his friends and one of them motorbike. Who gets the legal right to keep it.</p>
<p><strong>EDITED:</strong> IMHO buyer gets to keep it. As he can claim that when handling over the cans his intention was to provide the beer only (cans contents) and not motorbike. One simmilar case that could be used is <code>barren cow</code>  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherwood_v._Walker" rel="nofollow noreferrer">where both assumed that cow was barren</a>, court ruled that contract invalid... Same is here I am pretty sure that buyer didn't have intent on giving moto away... Although the case above is indeed contract law and beer can is a gift and not a contract... Does mutual mistake rule applies to gifts?</p>
<p><strong>Who gets to keep it? Person who bought it or person who opened the can?</strong></p>

<p>If the buyer gave the beer away, the recipient gets the winnings. But he could explicitly give away just the content of the beer can, and not the ring tab that entitles one to something of value. Ordinarily, one would understand the gift of a car of beer to include the can, so if that is not your intent, you should be clear that you're only giving away the fluid content, and you expect to get the can back. You could take the controversy to local courts and see what they think about this; maybe Khmer Brewery has contest rules which you can read.</p>
