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This is really sad. Isn't "competence" a necessary prerequisite for entering into legal contracts?

Pretty much. Entering into a contract with a brain damaged individual who was not at all educated would get the contract thrown out of court pretty quickly.

That sounds, maybe ironically in this context, like a class-action lawsuit opportunity. Or maybe individual litigation on contingency (to void the contract for lack of capacity to contract, or another theory).

Maybe I'm an ignorant jackass for asking this, but how can someone who lacks competence to enter contracts ever litigate on a contingency basis?

In the article the same woman falls for a different company to sell her settlement to, and it gets thrown out of court because she already sold it to the first company.

If someone has brain damage and struggled with an education, usually a custodian is assigned to take care of their finances and make financial and legal decisions for them. In this case it didn't happen, and her name and phone number is on a list of people who got settlements that these companies buy and then call and scam out of their settles for pennies on the dollar.

That line of reasoning is a double-edged sword.

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