Norman J. Kolb, Trustee of the Robert James Kolb Memorial Trust v. City of Storm Lake, Iowa

Summary

The Iowa Supreme Court considered whether a charitable trust established to maintain a memorial flower garden in a specific location could be modified under Iowa Code section 633A.5102 after the City of Storm Lake removed the garden for an economic development project. The court held that the trust was charitable, that the original location had become impracticable or impossible for fulfillment, and that the settlors had a general charitable intent to maintain the memorial garden for public enjoyment. The court reversed the district court and remanded for further proceedings.

Holdings

1. Whether the cy pres doctrine applies is reviewed de novo on the record.
2. The statutory cy pres doctrine preserves a charitable trust when a particular charitable purpose becomes impracticable, unlawful, or impossible, permits modification to best achieve the settlor's general charitable purposes, and incorporates the common-law tripartite requirements of a charitable trust, failure or impairment of a specific purpose, and general charitable intent.
3. The Robert James Kolb Memorial Trust Fund is a charitable trust because its purpose of supporting a public flower garden and memorial in a city park benefits the community.
4. The trust's particular purpose of funding the garden at its original specified location became impracticable and impossible to fulfill after the City removed the garden and proceeded with a redevelopment project requiring relocation.
5. A trustee or donee is not categorically barred from invoking cy pres merely because its own actions caused the impossibility or impracticability; cy pres may apply when the changed circumstances resulted from natural and unavoidable conditions rather than mere trustee convenience.
6. The settlors had a general charitable intent to perpetually honor their grandson and benefit the City through a public memorial garden, and the original location was not the trust's dominant or essential purpose.
7. The trust may be modified to fund maintenance of a substantially similar garden and fountain at a nearby new location, using the memorial plaques and other vestiges of the original memorial, because the modification is as near as possible to the settlors' intent.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Iowa Code section 633A.5102 permits cy pres modification of the charitable trust when the specified location for the memorial garden and fountain has become impracticable or impossible because of the City's redevelopment project.
2. Whether the fact that the City caused the destruction and relocation of the garden and fountain categorically bars application of cy pres.
3. Whether the settlors possessed a general charitable intent sufficient to permit continuation of the trust at a different location.
4. Whether the proposed relocation and substantially similar reconstruction of the garden and fountain is sufficiently close to the settlors' intent to be approved under cy pres.

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded