A Montreal lawyer wants a DNA test on a prize-winning Tim Hortons coffee cup that has already pitted two elementary school girls against one another.

Claude Archambault said his client, whom he declined to name, bought the coffee cup that was picked out of the garbage bin by a 10-year-old girl at her elementary school in St-Jerome, north of Montreal. Archambault sent a letter to Tim Hortons last week asking the company not to award the prize SUV until the matter is resolved.

"My client, he's not rich," Archambault said Monday.

"He's very sympathetic toward the girls who found the cup, but he said, 'I bought it, and I should be the one who should be paid.' That's his position."

The company has not yet responded to Archambault's letter.

Archambault said no legal action has been taken while he researches the laws that would apply to the case.

He said there is a witness who saw his client with the cup but he would like a DNA test.

A spokesman for Tim Hortons declined to comment on the latest turn of events, but a legal expert said the claim is unlikely to succeed.

"That, I think, is ridiculous," said David Lametti, a law professor at McGill University.

"You might make a claim of ongoing ownership if you lose something... but this was thrown away, it was abandoned."

And under Quebec civil law, when a person abandons an object he relinquishes his claim, he said.

"He threw it away in a public dumpster, right? That, to me, is clearly abandonment," Lametti said.

It's the second dispute over the winning Quebec coffee cup.

According to media reports, the 10-year-old who plucked it from the garbage can last Tuesday couldn't unroll the rim with her small fingers and asked for help from a 12-year-old school mate.

When the cup turned out to be a winner, one of 30 with Toyota RAV4 written under the rim, a dispute erupted over who had claim to the $28,700 prize.

The 12-year-old's mother has said she's not considering legal action, but would like her daughter to share in the prize.

"The Roll up the Rim to Win promotion is meant to be a thank you to our loyal customers," Tim Hortons said in a statement.

The rim in question hasn't yet been submitted for a prize, said the statement.

"However, we sincerely hope that the families in this case in Quebec will be able to come to a resolution," the company said.

In Sault Ste, Marie, Ont., two women are sharing the prize they won from the Tim Hortons roll-up-the-rim contest.

Manuela Phillips and Kristine Dahlmann had shared free doughnuts and coffees in the past, but they were shocked when Dahlman unrolled the big win Thursday: a Toyota RAV4.

They had an agreement to share the prize.

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/2006/03/13/1485994-cp.html

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Moral of the story:
Roll up & "Look before you Dump."

Another case where the lawyers are the one who would get richer

Anybody's kids among the CD members studying law?

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Dimple2001