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Fringey Mini: a lawsuit of emOceans · Journey to the Fringe

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  Okay, Chelsea, you took some scheme from my rich
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  people's emotions theme of fringing minis. Yeah.
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  So I do have to take this back and it is with...
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  You're reclaiming it. I am reclaiming it with
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  this beautiful story. Okay. This comes from Boston
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  .com, written on August 4th, 2026. Article title,
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  Cape Cod Homeowner. Suze says banks should not
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  have given him $5 .5 million mortgage for mansion
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  at risk of collapse. Oh, God. Before he became
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  known as the guy who paid $5 .5 million for a
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  house threatening to tumble into Cape Cod Bay
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  and later as the plaintiff, John G. Bonomi Jr.
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  was just a man who had fallen in love with a
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  piece of real estate. And that, that right there
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  is how you do journalism. Anybody who is studying
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  it, take notes. Yeah, that was beautifully written.
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  As I will now know. The shingled house perched
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  on the edge of a well -fleek cliff was mammoth,
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  with sunset and water views, an Instagram -worthy
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  kitchen, and so many en -suite bathrooms you'd
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  never get rid of house kids. So many. And if
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  grim and widely reported environmental assessments
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  about catastrophic erosion and ongoing legal
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  actions made the price tag a little high, well,
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  who among us hasn't ignored red flags and geotechnical
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  engineers and listened instead to our hearts?
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  Yeah, did you hear how many ensuite's there were?
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  And that, dear reader, is the crux of the John
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  Bonomi v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, a case making
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  its way through the United States District Court
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  of the Southern District of New York. Bonomi.
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  a retired new york attorney is alleging that
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  the bank shouldn't have lent him the money because
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  and this is directly from his own suit quote
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  no rational person would have considered purchasing
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  the property and certainly not at the full asking
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  price end quote it's been said that the definition
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  of chutzpah or chutzpah i think is how you're
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  technically supposed to say it is killing your
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  parents and then pleading for mercy because you're
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  an orphan does applying for a mortgage and then
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  blaming the bank for giving it to you also qualify?
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  Bonomi's claim may sound implausible, like the
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  insanity defense, but for a mortgage. But is
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  it? Bonomi says that he has bipolar disorder,
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  and in New York there is a legal precedent for
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  allowing a mental health condition to be the
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  basis for invalidating a contract. We'll get
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  to the psychiatric and legal expert analysis
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  of that question in a moment, but first, to the
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  suit. in which bonomi seeks to avoid mortgage
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  and note for 3 .85 million dollars plus interest
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  in damages and attorney fees he's seeking a jury
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  trial quote Plaintiff was acting under an uncontrollable
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  manic psychosis at the time he entered into the
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  mortgage. And note, end quote, the suit filed
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  in October of 2025 reads, quote, it is a recognized
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  diagnostic fact that a symptom of bipolar disorder
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  is irrational risk -taking and impulsive behavior,
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  including reckless spending, end quote. The bank,
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  Bonomi alleges, should have known better. Quote,
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  defendant was aware or willfully avoided acknowledging
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  that plaintiff was not at that time competent
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  to enter into the mortgage. end quote. JPMorgan
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  Chase initially sought to have the case dismissed,
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  but in May, it answered Bonomi's complaint, quote,
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  to the extent a response is required, end quote,
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  it read, quote, Chase denies the allegations
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  contained therein and leaves plaintiffs to his
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  proofs, end quote. Justin Page, a spokesman,
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  said JPMorgan Chase had no comment. But wait,
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  it's one thing for a potential buyer to be in
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  the grips of a real estate fantasy, but didn't
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  the bank require an appraisal before signing
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  off on the mortgage? What did it say? In an email,
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  Bonomi's attorney said the bank, quote, claims
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  it showed John the appraisal, but in fact, he
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  never saw them. They must have been pretty high
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  to allow the bank to loan so much money, end
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  quote. in 2021 the same year bonomi made his
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  purchase the town of wellfleet assessed the property
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  value of 4 .3 million In an attempt to show how,
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  quote, seductive, end quote, the house was, Bonomi's
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  legal filing included a link to the real estate
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  agent's marketing video. It's three minutes of
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  airy interiors and drone footage of windswept
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  dunes set to classical music. By the time a bird
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  swoops by in the achingly blue sky, a bald eagle
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  perhaps, Nicole Kidman herself would not seem
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  out of place. the 5 000 square foot plus house
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  oh my god located on a coastal bank within the
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  cape cod national seashore was born in controversy
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  posed by the national park service but ultimately
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  built anyway in 2010 on the narrow strip of beauty
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  between cape cod bay and wellfleet harbor by
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  a couple named mark and barbara blash around
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  the cape the blash house as it is still known
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  has long been the subject of gossip resented
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  for intruding on sacred space quote the whole
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  thing has been preposterous from the start end
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  quote said corinne demas professor emerita of
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  english at mount holyoke college and writer who
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  has lived in the wealth fleet part -time for
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  about half a century quote you take some people
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  with enormous ego and vast amounts of money who
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  say quote, within a quote, I guess, I'm going
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  to build a house where no one thinks a house
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  should be built, end part quote, within a quote,
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  end full quote, she said. Like a celebrity spinning
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  out of control, the Blash house was catnip for
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  the media. It's every stumble covered, a Shakespearean
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  tragedy, if the Bard had been interested in land
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  court. The story never stopped. Quote, Blash
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  wins lawsuit, Wellfleet, Trophy Homes, we'll
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  stay. End quote. A 2009 Wicked local headline
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  read, quote, sacrificial sand won't stop erosion
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  at Blash House. End quote. The Provincetown Independent
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  reported in 2020 and then the next year, quote,
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  giant seawall plan is turned down again. End
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  quote. And so on. Bonomi bought the house in
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  November of 2021 and the headlines continued.
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  They chronicled his unsuccessful attempt to sell
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  the house for a million, less than he paid. His
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  attempt to blame the home's predicament on the
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  town for refusing to let him build a stone reventment.
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  And then perhaps inevitably, as its seemingly
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  imminent tumble into the sea posed an ever more
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  urgent environmental threat, its end. Quote,
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  controversial house on a road in Cape Cod bluff
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  demolished by homeowner. end quote the globe
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  reported on february 26 2025 and that seemed
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  to be that with excavators clawing into the house
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  and tearing it apart piece by painful piece and
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  gawkers gathered to watch the spectacle the demolition
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  of 1440 check -a -set neck road had series finale
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  vibes but no it was just another pivot point
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  with the action simply moved from the cape to
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  a new york courtroom thomas moore bonomi's attorney
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  said he had nothing to add to the legal filing
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  he declined to provide a phone number for his
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  client and said he would not advise bonomi to
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  talk to a reporter he does not know of any case
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  in which a similar argument has been used to
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  avoid a mortgage he said in an email as for bonomi's
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  claim that he shouldn't have been given a mortgage
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  it can sound far -fetched to a lay person experts
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  say there is no question that a person with bipolar
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  disorder experiencing mania could spend an extraordinary
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  amount of money and chelsea i'm just gonna quickly
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  share my screen here because they included a
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  picture of this house which i think is just like
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  you should be able to see it so Yeah. Look at
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  this thing. That's a pretty nice house. I want
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  to buy it. You know what? Because I live in the
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  Okanagan, which has a very large cliff on one
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  side. I'm kind of surprised. It has like a very
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  steep stairs going down to the beach. Yeah. And
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  I'm just wondering, why wouldn't they have one
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  of those like escalators down? Like it's a $5
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  .5 million house. Yeah. I was just going to say
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  it's pretty expensive. So yeah. Why not nicer
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  stairs? I just see, I don't see why that's where
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  you skimp to go down to the beach. Yeah, that's
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  true. I mean, you could just have the beach road
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  and then you're more beachfront. No, but you
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  still have to go down. Well, that's where the
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  sea levels rise and come into play. No, and that
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  becomes a fair point too, Chelsea, that they
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  realize when they're building it that this was
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  a doomed thing, that they just put in shitty
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  money on the stairs because they were going to
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  get eroded away. And they're like three inches
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  from the back of the house. Yep. But yeah, I'm
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  glad you could see the house. Thank you. quote
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  but it's complicated end quote said annie harper
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  an assistant professor of psychiatry at yale
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  university who studies the intersection of finances
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  and mental health quote for me the bigger question
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  is how do we set up a system that can minimize
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  the depths of the finance catastrophe that can
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  be caused by the situation end quote among the
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  potential remedies she and other scholars are
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  studying an advanced directive in which the person
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  themselves would specify when their own spending
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  should be stopped Another is empowering a trusted
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  individual to get an alert when the over -specified
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  amount is about to be spent and options to reverse
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  large payments. Quote, But it's really important
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  to strike a balance, Harper said. You can't assume
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  that because someone has had one manic episode,
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  they're going to have another, or that because
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  they have a particular diagnosis, they are going
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  to behave in a certain way. End quote. Beyond
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  the agency of individual and the financial consequences
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  a single person might face, there are the legal
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  issues. A foundational case on mental capacity
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  and contract laws, or TELERAE, the teacher's
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  RETBD of the city of New York. And I don't, it's
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  RET .BD. And I'm not sure what those stand for.
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  So it sounds awkward. But anyhow, the 1969 case
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  involved a New York City school teacher who elected
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  to change her retirement benefits two months
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  before her death from natural causes and her
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  widower. ultimately successful, allegation that
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  she was not mentally competent to do so. In that
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  case, the appellate court ruled that a contract
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  may be rescinded if the executing party, quote,
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  was laboring under a mental defect that prevented
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  acting in a reasonable manner and the other party
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  knew of the defect, end quote. According to,
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  quote, retrospective assessment of mental state
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  in criminal and civil litigation, a clinical
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  review, end quote, a forensic psychiatry textbook.
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  But when I ran the Wellfleet case by Ethan Libb,
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  a professor of law at Fordham Law School, he
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  said that Bonomi faces a, quote, difficult burden
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  of proof, end quote. For one thing, Libb said,
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  how was JP Morgan supposed to know that Bonomi
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  was in a manic phase? And considering that the
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  town's $4 .38 million reported assessment, he
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  said how extreme was a $5 .5 million sales price
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  in a speculative real estate market? lib said
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  in details in bonomi's suit about bonomi's mortgage
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  payment made him question the use of the alleged
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  manic phase as a claim quote from november 2021
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  until september 2024 plaintiff paid chase 21
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  053 .5 per month the suit reads quote the plaintiff
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  then ceased making any mortgage or tax payments
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  as it was becoming clear the home likely was
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  not going to be salvageable end quote quote the
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  idea that he stopped paying that's a rational
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  person doing calculations and quote lib said
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  quote courts in new york care if people trying
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  to rescind their agreements have lucid phases
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  where they recognize the bindingness of their
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  contracts after they form, end quote, he added.
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  Quote, even if they form under conditions of
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  a mental defect, end quote. The land on which
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  the $5 .5 million mansion once stood, and which
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  is still owned by Bonomi, according to his attorney,
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  was reassessed by the town of Wellfleet and as
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  of January 1, 2025, valued at $385 ,000. Meanwhile,
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  as the humans plot their next step, the marine
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  life in Cape Cod Bay has weighed in. On a recent
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  afternoon, Demis, the longtime summer resident,
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  was wading in the area at low tide from the sea.
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  She heard a pod of seals caterwauling. Quote,
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  it was as if the seals had been watching this
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  human folly. End quote, she said. And that's
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  the end of the article. I wonder if, like, uh...
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  i don't know how to put it like if this wasn't
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  a house that was gonna fall into the ocean like
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  obviously he probably wouldn't still be making
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  this claim or having this lawsuit i'm assuming
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  To be fair, I don't think you'd find yourself
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  in this particular situation had it not been
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  falling into the ocean. Yeah, that's true. So,
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  I mean, whether you're bipolar or not, like,
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  I don't think that you necessarily go and sue
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  the person giving you a mortgage unless it's
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  falling into the ocean. Yeah. No, he's looking
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  for an out, and that's... This article... weirdly
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  enough for how much i just read they did not
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  once really talk about global warming being the
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  cause of what's happening here yeah well it's
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  interesting it's a farcical story but like this
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  is one of those things where we've said from
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  the start with our rich people's emotions yeah
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  theme of stories that they're looking for any
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  out they can possibly get because rich people
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  bear no repercussions in our society And that
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  was my kind of train of thought of I wonder what's
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  going to happen to these people as it starts
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  happening more and more. Do you think there's
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  going to be like a bailout of some sort? Like
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  you have to think that someone eventually is
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  going to do something. Do you think? There will
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  be a bailout of some kind, but... Until that
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  happens and how it's assessed, I do think we're
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  just going to keep getting, and I said this from
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  the start, we're going to keep getting outlandish
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  ways to avoid the loss like this. And I love
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  this. And this, I got to say, Beth, Beth Tietel,
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  you did a great job. Beautifully written story.
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  You needed to talk about the climate change issue.
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  She might be an orca. But no, no, the orcas would
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  have said something about climate change. It's
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  true. And I think we're still a ways off of something
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  actually happening because for something actually
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  happening, they would have to admit climate change.
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  And right now they're just going in the exact
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  opposite direction. Yeah. So I think we still
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  got like a little bit to go with this and just
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  see what else they start coming up with in order
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  to play the game. But I am liking the creative
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  approaches the rich people are taking. I don't
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  know if it's creative, but... I think your house
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  falls into the sea and you say, I was actually
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  under a manic episode when I bought this five
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  years ago. Let's void this mortgage. Yeah. I
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  think that's pretty creative. Yeah. And I'm not
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  saying in a good way. In a good way. This is
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  kind of like how Trump makes really shitty arguments,
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  but they are creative. I don't know that I would
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  call them creative, but... Maybe we have different
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  definitions. Yeah, fair enough, fair enough.
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  Creative might be a very different word in our
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  minds. Yeah. But anyhow, you guys got 48 hours.
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  You call your bank, see if you can get your mortgage
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  voided. We accept no liability for any issues
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  that come from this. As you know. Yes. Anyhow,
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  bye. Bye.