Estates and Trusts Commons^™

Perpetuities In An Unequal Age, Jack H.L. Whiteley

Northwestern University Law Review

For centuries, the common law limited aristocratic wealth. In the last three decades, that has changed. One by one, state legislatures have eliminated the rule against perpetuities (the Rule), and now “dynasty trusts” can make carefully controlled payments to a settlor’s descendants for hundreds of years. This change occurred soon before a large and ongoing intergenerational wealth transfer in the United States. Trusts scholars have roundly criticized the Rule’s removal, and some have described it as charting a path to a new Gilded Age.

This Article draws a theoretical lesson from the Rule’s demise. I argue that part of the …