Law Commons^™

Justifying Anglo-American Trusts Law, Ying Khai Liew

William & Mary Business Law Review

Is the existence of trusts law within Anglo-American law justified? The literature to date does not provide a satisfactory answer. Situating the doctrinal features of trusts law within the liberal tradition of political morality, this Article suggests that trusts law is justified because it enhances personal autonomy in a unique way. It is comprehensively autonomy-enhancing, with express, constructive, and resulting trusts each playing a unique role in achieving this aim. Thus, the law provides a facility for property owners to unilaterally deal with their own property (express trusts), allows individuals the freedom to enlist others in their pursuit of their …

The Domains Of Loyalty: Relationships Between Fiduciary Obligation And Intrinsic Motivation, Deborah A. Demott

William & Mary Law Review

Recent scholarly inquiry into fiduciary law predominantly focuses on whether the subject is a coherent field and not a piecemeal assortment of doctrinal detail. This Article looks to the future and to relationships between the formal domain of fiduciary law and other factors that shape conduct. These include intrinsic motivation, markets for professional services, and forces like the operation of reputation. The Article demonstrates that looking across domains, from the legal to the extralegal, casts in sharp relief the reasons why fiduciary law is distinctive. These stem from the specific qualities of relationships to which fiduciary law applies, as well …

Erisa Defined Benefit Plans Are Not "Trust"Worthy, Stewart E. Sterk

William & Mary Law Review Online

What role does the common law of trusts play in policing investment decisions made in the context of a defined-benefit retirement plan governed by ERISA? That issue, among others, divided the Supreme Court this past term in Thole v. U.S. Bank N.A. The Court’s majority decided the case by holding that plan beneficiaries had no Article III standing to challenge allegedly self-interested investment decisions made by the plan’s sponsor and administrator. Because the Court grounded its decision in constitutional standing, Congress would be powerless to confer standing on plan beneficiaries without also amending the substantive rights accorded those beneficiaries. This …

Community-Driven Climate Solutions: How Public-Private Partnerships With Land Trusts Can Advance Climate Action, Jessica Grannis

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

In 2018 and 2019, several landmark developments demonstrated the failings of past efforts to address climate change and the need for new and more ambitious solutions. In October 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (“IPCC”) released a dire report indicating that the window is rapidly closing for countries to dramatically reduce emissions in order to avoid the worst consequences of climate change and predicting dramatic consequences to the environment and public health if countries fail to take action; young activists started taking to the streets to demand more ambitious action to address climate change; and, at the 25th Conference …

Kaestner Fails: The Way Forward, Mitchell M. Gans

William & Mary Business Law Review

This past term, the Supreme Court applied the Due Process Clause to prevent the states from closing down a tax strategy that employs out-of-state trusts. Many had hoped that the case would serve as a vehicle for the Court to overrule taxpayer-friendly precedents that make the strategy possible. But it failed. The question that emerges is whether the decision leaves the states with a path to address the strategy and thereby prevent it from being used to exacerbate issues of inequality. After examining the decision, this Article considers the options available to the states and then suggests a way forward.

Borrowing In The Shadow Of Death: Another Look At Probate Lending, David Horton

William & Mary Law Review

“Fringe” lending has long been controversial. Three decades ago, demand for subprime credit soared, and businesses started to offer high-interest rate cash advances, such as tax refund anticipation loans, payday loans, and pension loans. These products have sparked intense debate and are subject to a maze of rules.

However, in Probate Lending, published in the Yale Law Journal, a coauthor and I examined a form of fringe lending that has gone largely unnoticed: firms that pay lump sums in return for an heir or beneficiary’s interest in a pending decedent’s estate. Capitalizing on a California law that requires …

Maximizing Ponzi Loss Deductions For Estate And Income Tax Purposes: Are Taxpayers Better Off Dead?, Valrie Chambers, Brian Elzweig

William & Mary Business Law Review

There is a long history of cases interpreting whether a theft loss deduction for securities fraud is allowable for personal income taxes. The cases require that for a theft loss to be actionable as such, it would have to meet the requirements of the common law definition of theft in the U.S. state in which it occurred. This generally requires direct privity between the person claiming the loss and the person who committed the theft. Because most securities transactions are brokered, the direct privity is lost and a theft loss deduction is denied in favor a capital loss. Recently, in …

Fiduciary Governance, Paul B. Miller, Andrew S. Gold

William & Mary Law Review

The fiduciary relationship is one of the most fundamental legal relationships, and its importance for both public and private law is increasingly recognized. Fiduciary mandates typically involve one person—the fiduciary—administering the affairs or property of other persons—an individual beneficiary or group of beneficiaries. Yet, as we will demonstrate, this is not the only way fiduciary relationships are structured. Most accounts of fiduciary law oversimplify the law because they exclude a categorically different form of fiduciary relationship. A significant set of fiduciary relationships feature governance mandates in which the fiduciary is charged with pursuing abstract purposes rather than the interests of …

Forfeiting Trust, Deborah S. Gordon

William & Mary Law Review

Over the past two years, a significant number of appellate courts in jurisdictions throughout the country have faced trust provisions that purport to disinherit any beneficiaries who challenge a trustee’s decision making. Such provisions to “secure compliance ... with dispositions of property”—known as “forfeiture,” “no-contest,” “anticontest,” or “penalty” clauses—have appeared in wills for well more than a century. But the trust clauses differ from their testamentary counterparts and thus deserve serious scrutiny in their own right, especially because the abundance of recent cases has led to increasingly inconsistent and haphazard approaches. This Article exposes the problems that trust forfeiture clauses …

Law, Biology, And Property: A New Theory Of The Endowment Effect, Owen D. Jones, Sarah F. Brosnan

William & Mary Law Review

Recent work at the intersection of law and behavioral biology has suggested numerous contexts in which legal thinking could benefit by integrating knowledge from behavioral biology. In one of those contexts, behavioral biology may help to provide theoretical foundation for, and potentially increased predictive power concerning, various psychological traits relevant to law. This Article describes an experiment that explores that context. The paradoxical psychological bias known as the "endowment effect" puzzles economists, skews market behavior, impedes efficient exchange of goods and rights, and thereby poses important problems for law. Although the effect is known to vary widely, there are at …

The Empire Of Illness: Competence And Coercion In Health-Care Decision Making, Marsha Garrison

William & Mary Law Review

The law's willingness to take account of factors that interfere with volition tends to vary in accordance with its underlying goals. The law of wills is dominated by the principle of freedom of testation; it has thus developed doctrines aimed at detecting coercive influences that interfere with the testator's free agency. The law of medical decision making, dominated by the analogous principle of patient autonomy, has not developed doctrines aimed at detecting coercive influences despite a large and growing body of evidence showing that disordered insight and major depression, two common medical conditions, often have a coercive, negative effect on …

In Defense Of The No Further Inquiry Rule: A Response To Professor John Langbein, Melanie B. Leslie

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Hershey Trust's Quest To Diversify: Redefining The State Attorney General's Role When Charitable Trusts Wish To Diversify, Jennifer L. Komoroski

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Defeasible Fees, State Action, And The Legacy Of Massive Resistance, Jonathan L. Entin

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Personal Representative's Power To Sell Realty In Virginia

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Contracts Not To Revoke Joint Or Mutual Wills

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Making Gifts From Incompetent's Estate Under The Doctrine Of Substitution Of Judgment To Reduce Federal Estate Taxes

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Federal Estate Taxation - Charitable Transfer - Deductibility Of Certain Bequests - Estate Of Edna Allen Miller, 48 T . C. 251 (1967), Homer L. Elliott

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Class Gifts - The Virginia Rule Of Early Vesting, Sebastian Gaeta

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Real Estate Investment Trust: A New Medium For Investors, A. Overton Durrett

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Book Review Of Virginia Probate Practice, John Lee Darst

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Intestacy And The Surviving Spouse, Nancy Coleman Messick

William and Mary Review of Virginia Law

No abstract provided.

Wills - Renunciation In Behalf Of Incompetent Widow, Donald A. Lawrence

William and Mary Review of Virginia Law

No abstract provided.

Economic Consequences Of The Virginia Legal Investment Statute, Gordon Cumming Murray

William and Mary Review of Virginia Law

No abstract provided.

Estate Tax: United States V. Jacobs - Petition For Legislative Review, Rita Rogers Brandt

William and Mary Review of Virginia Law

No abstract provided.

Dower And Curtesy - Defeasance Of Decedent's Estate By Conditional Limitation, Thomas Todd Duval

William and Mary Review of Virginia Law

No abstract provided.

Property - Acceleration Of Remainderman's Interest By Murder, Peter Shebell Jr.

William and Mary Review of Virginia Law

No abstract provided.

Creditors' Rights - Tenancy By The Entirety-A Possible Fraud On Creditors In Virginia, Daniel Burr Bradley

William and Mary Review of Virginia Law

No abstract provided.