Stepp v. Freeman
Ohio Court of Appeals
694 N.E.2d 792 (1997)
Lionel Stepp (plaintiff) and Donald Freeman (defendant) were among 20 coworkers who had run an informal weekly lottery pool for over five years, with Freeman as organizer collecting each member's $2.20 share and notifying them when the jackpot hit $8 million; members had sometimes covered each other's shares when someone was out, and no one had ever been dropped for late payment. After Freeman and Stepp had a serious argument, Freeman didn't collect Stepp's share or tell him the pool was buying tickets that week; the group won, and Freeman denied Stepp his share because he hadn't paid. Stepp sued for breach of express contract, breach of implied contract, and equitable estoppel; a magistrate and the trial court both ruled for Stepp, and Freeman appealed.
Whether a long-running, informal group's consistent pattern of conduct can establish an implied-in-fact contract obligating a member's usual, unwritten role to be performed for every participant.