finding that a trust provision requiring a school district to certify a list of students eligible for a scholarship was “an incidental part of the trust’s administrative requirements” where “[t]he same result intended by the testator may be accomplished by permitting the students to apply directly to the trustee”
How later courts described this case
- finding that a trust provision requiring a school district to certify a list of students eligible for a scholarship was “an incidental part of the trust’s administrative requirements” where “[t]he same result intended by the testator may be accomplished by permitting the students to apply directly to the trustee”
- ex- plaining that equitable deviation differs from cy pres “in that ‘[t]hrough exercise of its deviation power the court alters or amends administrative provisions in the trust instrument but does not alter the purpose of the charitable trust or change its dispositive provisions.’” (quoting Bogert, The Law of Trusts and Trustees § 394 (2d. ed.))
- charitable intent must be rendered impossible or impracticable, and so long as there were available beneficiaries that qualified under the testator’s specific intent there was no impossibility
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Meyer, J.
(concurring in Matter of Wilson and dissenting in Matter of Johnson). I would affirm in both cases. Although the Constitution does not proscribe private bias, it does proscribe affirmative State action in furtherance of bias.
In Matter of Wilson the trust is private and the only involvement of a public official (the superintendent of schools) is his certification of a student’s class standing, *481 information which is, in any event, available to any student applying to the trustee for a scholarship. There is, therefore, no State action.
In Matter of Johnson, however, the trustee is the board of education, a public body. The establishment of a public trust for a discriminatory purpose is constitutionally improper, as Presiding Justice Mollen has fully spelled out in his opinion. For the State to legitimize that impropriety by replacement of the trustee is unconstitutional State action. The only permissible corrective court action is, as the Appellate Division held, excision of the discriminatory limitation.
In Matter of Wilson:
Judges Jasen, Jones, Wachtler, Meyer and Simons concur with Chief Judge Cooke; Judge Meyer concurs in a memorandum.
Order affirmed, etc.
In Matter of Johnson:
Judges Jasen, Jones, Wachtler and Simons concur with Chief Judge Cooke; Judge Meyer dissents and votes to affirm in a memorandum.
Order reversed, etc.