It has happened to be many years ago, a decent domain dropped and fell into a third party's hands... this was back before all the emails and auto-renews etc. were commonplace.
I couldn't renew at the time, someone cloned my bank card so couldn't access money in my bank... worst of all it took an age for a replacement card!!! Its life, I lost the domain, was very bitter about it for so many years afterwards haha... but despite it being for reasons beyond my control... I have no right to get the domain back. (The importance of extending registration periods cannot be underestimated... don't make the mistake of renewing decent domains within the last 3 months... even if temporary your financial situation etc. could change, furthermore, the longer you have it registered the better for sales... otherwise everyone waits and tries to backorder it)
Many businesses and domainers see high value domain names as an asset they own - technically, all you really do is lease it... you can have a domain name for 50 years (not as of today, but theoretically talking about the future) then lose it by not renewing it... doesn't matter how long you have "owned it". Its that whole "you snooze, you lose" thing... very frustrating.
The only thing you can do is try to buy it back. Normally 3 scenarios... 1) the new owner wants to develop it, 2) the new owner has inflated the price over the market value, or 3) the new owner is happy to accept part market value (i.e. 60%,70%) for the domain for a quick sale... on the basis that its a huge profit compared to the registration fee.
Its capitalism all over... hardly anyone (domainers) has paid current end-user value, reseller value or anything near it, for many of their domains... but many wouldn't hold on to them if they got an offer they couldn't refuse. Its pretty much "you win some, you lose some". That's the importance of profit... in addition to increasing your money, it also acts as a way to subsidize losses. You have the opportunity to move on, or you burn into your profit to get it back.