The Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied a Lackawanna County couple\u2019s appeal of lower-court rulings that determined a 232-year-old Pennsylvania law does not allow them to recover $700,000 loaned to a friend to cover his gambling losses.<\/p>\n
In a one-sentence order issued Tuesday, the state\u2019s top court denied a petition from the couple asking the court to hear an appeal of a state Superior Court ruling in March that went against them.<\/p>\n
Appeals to the state Supreme Court are not automatic and must be requested by an aggrieved party, and the top court then decides whether to take up the case. In this case, the Supreme Court declined to do so. That amounts to an upholding of the Superior Court ruling that upheld a Lackawanna County Court decision from 2025.<\/p>\n
The county court held that a 232-year-old Pennsylvania law does not allow the couple, neurologist Vithalbahai Dhaduk and his wife, Ranjan Dhaduk, to recover $700,000 in loans given to a friend, internist Bhupendra Patel, M.D., to cover Patel\u2019s losses from gambling in the card game blackjack at a Florida casino.<\/p>\n
The Dhaduks, of Glenburn Twp., sued Patel, of Susquehanna borough, in July 2024 in Lackawanna County Court, claiming breach of contract, fraud, unjust enrichment and promissory estoppel \u2014 meaning reneging on a promise to pay back the loan \u2014 according to that lawsuit.<\/p>\n
In a ruling issued March 31, 2025, Lackawanna County Judge Terrence Nealon dismissed the lawsuit because applicable state law enacted in 1794 holds that a person who loses money gambling cannot be compelled to pay the debt and any agreement or promise to pay is \u201cutterly void.\u201d Derived from the Statute of Queen Anne enacted in 1710 in Great Britain, the 1794 law titled \u201cGaming Contracts To Be Void\u201d was enacted during a time when all gambling was illegal throughout Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n
The 232-year-old law\u2019s pertinent part, Section 2031, states in part: \u201cIf any person or persons shall lose any money or other valuable thing, at or upon any match of cock-fighting, bullet-playing, or horse-racing, or at or upon any game of address, game of hazard, play or game whatsoever, the person or persons who shall lose their money or other valuable thing shall not be compelled to pay or make good the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Dhaduks contended the 1794 law applied only to \u201cillegal gambling.\u201d In 2004, Pennsylvania enacted the Pennsylvania Race Horse Development and Gaming Act that legalized some gambling, including slot machines and table games such as roulette, baccarat, blackjack, poker and craps, among others, and that were distinct from lottery games established over 30 years earlier.<\/p>\n
According to the breach-of-contract lawsuit and county and Superior Court rulings: the two physicians have been friends for over 50 years, since high school in India; they frequently gambled together, with Dhaduk often playing blackjack on Patel\u2019s behalf and Patel agreeing to be responsible for any losses; and the Dhaduks claimed Patel did not pay $700,000 owed to the couple for two loans they gave Patel while gambling in 2019 at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida, and which included $200,000 in chips that Dr. Dhaduk bought for Patel and $500,000 obtained from Dr. Dhaduk\u2019s line of credit.<\/p>\n
Nealon\u2019s decision concluded that under the plain meaning of Section 2031, the Dhaduks could not recover the money loaned to Patel; and the 2004 gaming law did not repeal Section 2031.<\/p>\n
In appealing Nealon\u2019s decision to the state Superior Court, the Dhaduks claimed \u201cthere is nothing \u2018illegal\u2019 about two highly educated, sophisticated doctors, lifelong friends, lawfully frequenting casinos, where they each hold substantial lines of credit personally, playing in high stakes private rooms, and exchanging \u2018loans\u2019 and chips under their repayment agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Dhaduks also claimed that \u201cto loan money does not involve a gamble or wager on the part of the lender\u201d and thus their recovery of the $700,000 should not be barred under law, and \u201clegalized casino gambling has evolved astronomically\u201d since Section 2031 was enacted in 1794.<\/p>\n
But in upholding Nealon\u2019s ruling, the Superior Court said: \u201cThe Dhaduks loaned Patel money and knew when they did so that it was for gambling purposes. Section 2031 precludes recovery of the debt.\u201d Superior Court also deemed as moot other legal arguments raised by the Dhaduks on appeal because those points had not been first raised in the lawsuit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied a Lackawanna County couple\u2019s appeal of lower-court rulings that determined a 232-year-old Pennsylvania…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28911,201,182,139,28,30,29,178,181],"class_list":["post-323035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-glenburn-township","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-scranton","tag-top-stories-stt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}