Updates to our Terms of Use

We are updating our Terms of Use. Please carefully review the updated Terms before proceeding to our website.

Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Suit Says Woman Moved Dad Into a Cargo Box

HILO, Hawaii (CN) — A man has sued his daughter, claiming she sold his apartment and moved him into a Matson shipping container in a remote Chilean rainforest without running water or electricity.

The suit, filed earlier this month in Third Circuit Court of Hawaii, claims that defendant Paula Bonde converted her elderly father George McGimsey's property for her own use after her mother died in 2011, and then isolated her father in order to control his finances.

According to the 14-page complaint, George and Pauline McGimsey had retired to Hawaii from Maryland in 2008, and were living in a condo at the Ilikai Hotel in Honolulu when Mrs. McGimsey fell ill. Bonde, a registered nurse living with her husband on a boat moored nearby, offered to care for her mother.

Bonde's husband is not a party to the complaint.

After Mrs. McGimsey passed away the family, including two other daughters, agreed that Paula Bonde would move in with her father at the Ilikai and take title to the property in trust for George McGimsey and his health and welfare.

But immediately after acquiring legal title to the property, Paula Bonde put the apartment up for sale. It sold soon after for $334,000, according to the complaint.

Approximately a month after the closing, Paula Bonde used the proceeds to buy a property in Paauilo on the Big Island for $90,000, and moved Mr. McGimsey into a tent while a bedroom was being added onto the house for him to live in, the complaint says.

But in January 2015, Paula Bonde and her husband took George McGimsey to live with them in Chile. After whisking her father to Chile, the Bondes moved into the shipping container in an isolated rain forest with drywall buckets for toilets.

"The situation for George McGimsey was dire and put him at risk" the complaint says, especially since he had a history of multiple strokes, open heart surgery, and suffered from diabetes.

Despite the 84-year old's frail condition, Bonde canceled his medical coverage in November 2015, the complaint says.

Not until Mr. McGimsey's other two daughters, plaintiff Lisa White and Heather Armstrong, visited McGimsey in December of 2015 did the family realize the state he was in. The sisters convinced Bonde to release their father and they returned him to the Unites States, according to the complaint.

A cursory internet search gives some indication of Bonde's activities in the interim. Operating under the trade name SeaSplendor, Bonde set up several businesses: One specializing "in the designing and manufacturing of fancy nautical rope jewelry and nautical gifts," including "handcrafted rope hair barrettes, hair accessories, watch bands, key fobs, key chains, earrings, rope picture frames, guitar straps, necklaces, belts, eyeglass lanyards, knife lanyards, rugs, ornamental matting, coxcombing, rope lamps;" another "a small organization in the paint companies industry located in Honolulu" with "an estimated $208,132 in yearly revenue and three employees;" a third offering American Heart Association Classes; and a rentals company formed in 2011.

According to George McGimsey's attorney Mark Kawata, McGimsey is living in Virginia, has reinstated his health care and is financially supported by retirement benefits and the help of family members.

Kawata is currently trying to serve Bonde with the lawsuit.

George McGimsey and Lisa McGimsey-White are suing for general and punitive damages, the return of properties and attorney's fees on claims ranging from unjust enrichment to false imprisonment.

Also named as defendants in the suit are Heath Philip Kimball, of Maui, who has been granted special power of attorney over the Paauilo property; and the Bank of Hawaii, which is believed to claim an interest in the Paauilo property.

Categories / Uncategorized

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Loading...