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Private Trusts For Indefinite Beneficiaries, George E. Palmer

Michigan Law Review

Recently, in McPhail v. Doulton (In re Baden's Deed Trusts), the House of Lords reached a decision that marks an important change in the English law of trusts which could be important also for American law. It held that there is a single test of validity for private trusts and for powers of appointment where the issue is whether the beneficiaries of the trust or the objects of the power are sufficiently definite, and that this single test is that applicable to powers of appointment. For nearly 170 years, since the decision in Morice v. Bishop of Durham, …