Wittfield v. Forster

Summary

The California Supreme Court considers whether an instrument conveying all of the decedent's real and personal property to a trustee for a Masonic lodge created a valid trust. The court holds that the attempted trust was void because it did not fall within the statutory purposes for express trusts in relation to real property and failed to identify the trust's purpose and terms with reasonable certainty. The judgment for the defendants is reversed and the cause is remanded.

Holdings

1. The attempted express trust in the real property was void because it did not fall within any of the purposes for which California law authorized express trusts in real property.
2. The instrument was too vague and uncertain to create a valid trust because it failed to state with reasonable certainty the trust's purpose, the duration of the trustee's estate, the nature and quantity of the beneficiaries' interests, and the manner of performance.
3. When a declared trust is illegal, void, or too uncertain to perform, the trustee takes no estate or a resulting trust arises in favor of the grantor or the grantor's heirs; either way, the grantor's executor and heirs could challenge the defendants' title.
4. The trustee's later attempt to declare and define the trust could not alter the rights of the grantor's heirs, which attached at the grantor's death.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the instrument created a valid express trust in the real property under California law.
2. Whether the instrument's uncertainty concerning the trust's purpose, duration, beneficiary interests, and manner of performance invalidated the trust as to both real and personal property.
3. Whether the trustee could later define the trust's terms and thereby affect the rights of the grantor's heirs.

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded