See the pictures below. Question: what reason might the court not enforce the contract?
Hughes v. Cole The record shows that in late 1989, Cleveland Hughes, Walter Cole, and others entered into an oral agreement in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, to form "a venture or association" to purchase tickets in the Lotto lottery conducted by the State Lottery Department of the Commonwealth of Virginia (the Lottery Department or the Department). The agreement provided that the members would "share equally the profits of the venture." The members pooled their funds to carry out the purposes of the venture and placed the funds in a strongbox located in a building in Elizabeth City, where the members regularly met. Each week, the members selected the numbers to be played from a list of 40 combinations the members had identified as prospective choices approximately one year prior to the events that are presently in dispute. The combination 03-07-08-15-27-42 was among the 40 combinations previously identified, and it was played, along with other specific combinations, in subsequent biweekly lottery games. It was the practice that one member of the venture would journey to a 7-Eleven store in Chesapeake, Virginia, to purchase the tickets containing the numbers selected for a particular week. The tickets were returned to Elizabeth City and placed in the same strongbox in which the pooled funds were kept. In the summer of 1992, Walter Cole assumed the responsibility of purchasing lottery tickets on behalf of the venture. The particular drawing that is in issue here took place on September 12, 1992. At the time, the membership of the venture consisted of Walter Cole, Cleveland Hughes, Richard Johnson, James L. Weeks, William L. Sharpe, Jr., and Hercules "Trink" Cole, Walter's brother. In the week before the drawing in issue, each member of the venture paid his share of the cost of purchasing lottery tickets for the week ending September 12. On September 9, Walter Cole took the funds from the strongbox, journeyed to the 7-Eleven store in Chesapeake and purchased, with the funds of the venture, tickets containing several, but not all, of the previously selected combinations of numbers, including the combination 03-07-08-15-27-42. This number was drawn on September 12 as the winning number, with an estimated prize of $18 million. Another individual not involved in this dispute played the same number; therefore, the amount in dispute here is approximately $9 million. On September 13, Walter Cole advised Cleveland Hughes that he had possession of the winning ticket and that he would not share the proceeds with the other members of the venture. For what reason might the court not enforce this contract
