As many of us know, the concept of tipping is one of the most common traditions in America. Although there is no law on tipping, you should definitely leave a tip, even a small one, whenever you go to a place because this tradition has become a norm among Americans.
In fact, people in America can look at people who do not tip very differently, and even on POS devices, you will see a section on how much to tip when paying.
A young waitress named Tonda Dickerson, who works at a waffle shop, indirectly receives a $10 million tip and her life turns upside down. So how come his life suddenly changes for the worse even though he earns 10 million dollars?
Tonda Dickerson works as a waitress at a waffle shop in Alabama.
Tonda Dickerson, a divorcee in her twenties, starts working at a waffle shop. Dickerson, who started working as a waiter to earn a living, is given a lottery ticket as a tip by a regular customer named Edward Seward. Seward always gives a lottery ticket to one of the employees every time he goes to the store, and he makes it a habit.
When the employees checked the lottery tickets they received as tips, they saw that they did not win the jackpot. However, when Dickerson checked his own ticket, he saw that he had won $10 million and was very happy about this. Because maybe he wouldn’t have to work for the rest of his life.
For those who are curious: Lana Del Rey worked as a volunteer at this waffle shop in the past months.
Dickerson chose to receive this bonus over 10 years rather than receiving it all at once.
It would seem unreasonable to take the $10 million he earned from the jackpot all at once, so he requested this bonus as a payment of approximately $375 thousand every month for 30 months. In this way, it is a very logical move to make a living without having to work for a long time, instead of taking the bonus all at once and spending it quickly.
However, the happiness brought by this large amount of money was short-lived and Dickerson’s colleagues said that this bonus was unfair, that they had to divide it among themselves and that this was an unwritten rule among them.
This is where things start to get heated because Dickerson refuses the request.
Colleagues say this bonus is unfair. Because, according to the verbal agreement they made between them before, no matter who gets the bonus, it will be shared equally among the employees and no one will be able to violate this rule. That’s why all the employees took the incident to court because of Dickerson’s decision. Interestingly, among them was the person who gave the lottery ticket: Edward Seward.
Seward said he should buy a pickup truck for whoever wins the lottery. The employees accepted this and would wait for the lottery to come to them and buy a pickup truck to Seward. However, since Dickerson did not accept this, Seward was also among the plaintiffs. That’s why he found himself in a legal battle more than once.
In April 1999, his colleagues and Dickerson appeared in court. For Dickerson, who refused to share the bonus, the court ruled against him and said that he should share the bonus. Since he told this conversation to a couple who came to the waffle shop, the couple who witnessed the conversation were also in court and they were also in court as witnesses.
The case went to a settlement. Dickerson, who received an offer of $3 million from the Florida Lottery jackpot, rejected this offer and quietly left the court. However, the incident did not end there because the litigation process took longer than expected due to Seward’s involvement.
Seward sued Dickerson to take the truck, but the court dismissed the case, saying that this request had no force.
Dickerson appealed to the Alabama Supreme Court and said that this decision was a clear gamble, stating that any agreement made between employees was not legal. Because gambling is prohibited in any workplace.
While these cases dragged on, Dickerson got into more trouble.
Despite her divorce in 1997, her ex-husband Stacy Martin, who learned about the lottery conversation, decided to kidnap her. While driving down the road, Martin deliberately hit Dickerson with his pickup truck and then assaulted him. The woman, who was threatened with death, was kidnapped by her ex-husband and taken to a secluded shore and put on a boat.
According to the woman’s statement, her ex-husband threatened her with death. Dickerson’s phone rang and her ex-husband allowed her to pick up the phone. Just as he was about to reach for his phone, he pulled a .22 caliber gun from his bag and shot him in the right side of his chest. Even though she was injured, her ex-husband took the gun from her and said he would kill her with it.
Dickerson persuaded him to treat his wound and called an ambulance. Thereupon, the police came to the hospital and took statements from both of them.
If you think things will end here, you are wrong…
This incident took longer with the involvement of the US Tax Administration. Before she was kidnapped by her ex-husband, Dickerson founded a company called “9 Mill” to hold the bonus and owned 49% of its shares. He transferred the remaining 51% to his family members.
However, a lawyer named Toye Sue, who worked in the tax administration, took a look at the taxes Dickerson had to pay. In this case, Dickerson, who was supposed to make a payment of $771,570, did not make this payment and argued that this share sharing was actually a gift exchange between the family.
As a result of the case, Dickerson was left with only $1,119,347 from the bonus, and nothing happened to him just because of a tip.
So where exactly is Dickerson now, after all this?
In the latest lawsuit against Dickerson, the court says such incidents represent only a tiny fraction of the lottery’s history. After all the bad things that happened, Dickerson, as far as it is known from his social media accounts, works as a poker dealer in a casino called Golden Nugget.
Although it seemed like a simple tip, a lottery ticket turned the life of a woman working at a waffle shop into trouble. As a result, we assume that Tonda Dickerson has learned a lot from facing the judiciary.
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