Estates and Trusts Commons^™

Who Is Afraid Of Perpetual Trusts?, Bridget J. Crawford

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

Throw a stone into a room full of law professors, and it is virtually impossible to hit someone who will defend perpetual trusts. Yet since 1995, eighteen states have repealed their rules against perpetuities, and there are now twenty-one states that permit trusts to last forever. Many academics have responded with a virtual pile-on, calling the repeals a "race to the bottom" at best and "loony" at worst. Lawrence Waggoner, Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan School of Law and Reporter for the Restatement (Third) of Property: Wills and Other Donative Transfers, has made another contribution to the scrum. …

Children Of Assisted Reproduction, Kristine S. Knaplund

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

More than three decades after the birth of the first child conceived through in vitro fertilization, few states have comprehensive statutes to establish the parentage of children born using assisted reproduction techniques (ART). While thousands of such children are born each year courts struggle to apply outdated laws. For example, does a statute terminating paternity for a man who donates sperm to a married woman apply if the woman is unmarried? In 2008, the Uniform Probate Code (UPC) added two much-needed sections on the complicated parentage and inheritance issues that arise in the field of assisted reproduction. Yet it is …

Non-Judicial Estate Settlement, John H. Martin

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Estate settlement through probate procedures satisfies no one. The public is hostile to the delay, expense, and lack of privacy that accompanies probate. Attorneys respond to public dissatisfaction by counseling probate avoidance. Legislatures facilitate some settlements by enacting simplified procedures for low-value estates. In large measure, the Uniform Probate Code (UPC) was a response to criticisms leveled at probate. Alternative settlement procedures are offered by the UPC, including informal testacy determinations and informal appointment procedures. These alternatives, however, remain imbedded in a judicial system, with it procedural rigidities. The UPC informal settlement alternatives did not silence the criticism. The continued …

What's In The Third And Final Volume Of The New Restatement Of Property That Estate Planners Should Know About, Lawrence W. Waggoner

Articles

Professor John Langbein and I have just concluded a twenty-year project for the American Law Institute to restate the law of donative transfers. The official title of our three-volume Restatement is the Restatement (Third) of Property: Wills and Other Donative Transfers.1 We refer to it herein simply as the Property Restatement. The third and final volume of the work was published in the last days of 2011. Professor Langbein spoke about certain of the initiatives in the two earlier volumes, which set forth the principles governing the law of wills, intestacy, interpretation of instruments, and the nonprobate system. The concluding …

Toward A Model Law Of Estates And Future Interests, D. Benjamin Barros

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Embarassing Rule Against Perpetuities, Peter A. Appel

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Future Interests, T. P. Gallanis

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Rise Of The Perpetual Trust, Jesse Dukeminier, James E. Krier

Articles

For more than two centuries, the Rule against Perpetuities has served as the chief means of limiting a transferor's power to tie up property by way of successive contingent interests. But recently, at least seventeen jurisdictions in the United States have enacted statutes abolishing the Rule in the case of perpetual (or near-perpetual) trusts. The prime mover behind this important development has been the federal Generation-Skipping Transfer Tax. This Article traces the gradual decline of the common law Rule against Perpetuities, considers the dynamics behind the recent wave of state legislation, examines the problems that might result from the rise …

The Uniform Probate Code Extends Antilapse-Type Protection To Poorly Drafted Trusts, Lawrence W. Waggoner

Articles

The Uniform Law Commission' promulgated a revised version of Article II of the Uniform Probate Code (UPC or Code) in 1990, and approved a set of technical amendments in 1993. As Director of Research and Chief Reporter for the Joint Editorial Board for the Uniform Probate Code (Board)2 and reporter for the UPC Article II drafting committee, I was privileged to serve as the principal drafter of these provisions. UPC Article II deals with the substantive rules governing donative transfers - intestacy; spouse's elective share; execution, revocation, and revival of wills; rules of construction for wills and other donative transfers; …

The Upc's New Survivorship And Antilapse Provisions, Edward C. Halbach Jr., Lawrence W. Waggoner

Articles

Law governing transfers of family property has long struggled with questions of survivorship in their many and varied forms. Important results can and regularly do turn on how such issues are resolved.

The Uniform Statutory Rule Against Perpetuities: Oregon Joins Up, Lawrence W. Waggoner

Articles

Uniform perpetuity reform is on the march, and Oregon has joined the parade. On January 1, 1990, the Uniform Statutory Rule Against Perpetuities (Uniform Act) became effective in Oregon. Although promulgated only three years ago, the Uniform Act has been enacted in over twenty percent of the states and appears to be on its way toward enactment in several others. Prior to the adoption of the Uniform Act, Oregon followed the common-law Rule Against Perpetuities (common-law Rule). Noted for its unjust consequences, the common-law Rule disregards actual events and invalidates a contingent (nonvested) future interest merely on the grounds of …

The Uniform Statutory Rule Against Perpetuities: The Rationale Of The 90-Year Waiting Period, Lawrence W. Waggoner

Articles

The Uniform Law Commissioners promulgated the Uniform Statutory Rule Against Perpetuities in 1986. The perpetuity-reform efforts of the American Law Institute in the Restatement (Second) inspired the Uniform Act. The Restatement and the Uniform Act employ the so-called wait-and-see approach to perpetuity reform. Wait-and-see is a two-step strategy. Step One preserves the validating side of the common-law Rule Against Perpetuities (the common-law Rule): By satisfying the common-law Rule, a nonvested future interest in property is valid at the moment of its creation. Step Two is a salvage strategy for future interests that would have been invalid at common law: Rather …

The Uniform Statutory Rule Against Perpetuities, Lawrence W. Waggoner

Articles

When the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws recently approved the Uniform Statutory Rule Against Perpetuities, it may at long last have made perpetuity reform achievable in this country. Coming, as it does, on the heels of the 1981 promulgation of the Restatement (Second) of Property (Donative Transfers), which adopts the same general type of perpetuity reform, and having been unanimously endorsed by the House of Delegates of the American Bar Association, the Board of Regents of the American College of Probate Counsel, and the Board of Governors of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers, the Uniform …

Perpetuities: A Perspective On Wait-And-See, Lawrence W. Waggoner

Articles

Professor Dukeminier and I agree on most of the important points concerning perpetuity law and perpetuity reform. We agree that the Rule Against Perpetuities still serves a socially useful function of limiting dead hand control, and should not be abolished. We also agree that the common law Rule is needlessly harsh and should be softened. Finally, we agree on the type of reform that is most desirable-waitand- see. Our only disagreeihent-concerns the best method of marking off the wait-and-see perpetuity pe]iqod-the period of time during which dispositions that would have been invalid under the common law Rule are to be …

A Rejoinder By Professor Waggoner, Lawrence W. Waggoner

Articles

Since the patience of the reader and the space in this issue of the Law Review are nearing their limits, I wish to publish only two points in response to what Professor Dukeminier has written.. These points further support my position that Dukeminier's proposed statute would lead almost anyone to conclude that A, not X, is the causal relationship measuring life in Example 1 of my article.1 By implication, these points, along with the others made in my article, corroborate my overall thesis: Professor Dukeminier's proposed one-sentence statute2 cannot be counted a responsible way of identifying the measuring lives for …

Perpetuity Reform, Lawrence W. Waggoner

Articles

After years of debate, perpetuity reform is still controversial. To be sure, there is agreement among virtually all of the commentators and experts in the field that the Rule Against Perpetuities is in need of reform. The disagreement, on the surface, centers on the methods of reform to be employed. At least three basic methods have been advanced: (1) specific statutory repair of discrete problem areas; (2) reformation; and (3) wait-and-see. Each method has its sponsors, and each has in one form or another been adopted as part of the law of a few states. These methods are not mutually …

In Re Lattouf's Will And The Presumption Of Lifetime Fertility In Perpetuity Law, Lawrence W. Waggoner

Articles

Adoption of children is an ever-present complication of class gifts and the Rule Against Perpetuities. Given this fac any effort to find the presumption of lifetime fertility rebuttable is largely illusory. The author demonstrates that the gift in In Re Lattouf's Will could have been sustained even in face of an irrebuttable presumption.

The Emergence Of A General Reformation Doctrine For Wills, Lawrence W. Waggoner, John H. Langbein

Articles

In this article, which both summarizes and updates an extensively footnoted article published last year ("Reformation of Wills on the Ground of Mistake: Change of Direction in American Law?" 130 University of Pennsylvania Law Rmiew 521 (1982)), we report on this new case law and discuss the analytic framework that we think it suggests and requires.

Reformation Of Wills On The Ground Of Mistake: Change Of Direction In American Law?, John H. Langbein, Lawrence W. Waggoner

Articles

Although it has been "axiomatic" that our courts do not entertain suits to reform wills on the ground of mistake, appellate courts in California, New Jersey, and New York have decided cases within the last five years that may presage the abandonment of the ancient "no-reformation" rule. The new cases do not purport to make this fundamental doctrinal change, although the California Court of Appeal in Estate of Taff and the New Jersey Supreme Court in Engle v. Siegel did expressly disclaim a related rule, sometimes called the "plain meaning" rule. That rule, which hereafter we will call the "no-extrinsic-evidence …

Trusts And The Doctrine Of Estates, Olin L. Browder Jr.

Michigan Law Review

The "doctrine of estates" is the common law system for the classification of divided ownership. Its primary purpose is to differentiate the legal consequences of the variety of concurrent, present, and future estates, but it also serves to differentiate the dispositive language required to create or transfer such estates. The doctrine of estates, therefore, embraces a sizable part of the law of conveyancing, including the large body of doctrine known as rules of construction.

In modern practice the classification and construction of present and future interests usually occurs with respect to beneficial interests in trust. It has not been sufficiently …

Wills--Implied Gifts Of Remainders, W. Richard Mccune Jr.

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Taxation--Apportionment Of Inheritance Tax Where Contingent Or Limited Interests Are Present, Anne R. Williams

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Property--Right Of Re-Entry--Descent And Alienability, John R. Frazier

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Property--Fee Simple Determinables--Distinguishing Characteristics, James Alan Harris

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Elliott E. Cheatham - Gentleman, Richard R. Powell

Vanderbilt Law Review

It was suggested to the writer that he write about Elliott E. Cheatham as a colleague in the field of legal education. This is but one aspect of his special preeminence, but any aspect of this man finds its ultimate foundation in his underlying and pervasive qualities as a gentleman. Kindly in the face of student stupidity, gentle in persuading his obstinate colleagues, loving in his more personal relations, the man embodies the best that can be connoted by the phrase "Southern gentleman."

Future Interests--Transmissibility And Survivorship Characteristics Of Remainders, F. Richard Hall

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Doctrine Of Worthier Title In Arkansas, Morris S. Arnold

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Class Gifts Of Future Interests: When Is Survival Required?, Herman L. Trautman

Vanderbilt Law Review

Because of recent significant developments, this article will under-take to deal with the requirement of survival in class gifts of future interests both with respect to the responsibility of a lawyer who plans an estate and with the problem confronting the courts in the many cases where either holographic wills are allowed or lawyers fail to discharge their professional responsibility concerning this litigious issue. By way of introduction, it will first stress the importance of a proper training for professional responsibility in this area. It will then attempt to provide a proper perspective for the courts to deal with the …

Future Interests: Transmissibility Of Contingent Interests, Morris S. Arnold

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Decedents' Estates, Trusts And Future Interests -- 1963 Tennessee Survey, Herman L. Trautman

Vanderbilt Law Review

Three interesting cases represent significant developments in the laws concerning the distribution of amounts received by the administrator in wrongful death actions, two' of which arose under the Tennessee wrongful death statute and the other arising under the Federal Employers' Liability Act. The two cases arising under the Tennessee statute were problems of somewhat first impression,reasoned upon analogy, and the case arising under the federal statute resulted in the Tennessee Supreme Court overruling its prior decision.