Estates and Trusts Commons^™

Equity - Constructive Trusts - Thieves And Embezzlers As Constructive Trustees, Jacob L. Keidan

Michigan Law Review

During the last hundred years the constructive trust has been extended from its original sphere of operation, that of the express trust, into a variety of situations where the wrong consists of tort or crime. This important extension of remedial principles has been facilitated in some cases by describing as confidential or fiduciary certain legal relations which would not ordinarily be so considered. In other cases any requirement of a confidential or trust relationship has been wholly discarded. The process of extension has gone so far that Justice Cardozo, in Beatty v. Guggenheim Exploration Co., felt justified in declaring …