{"items": [{"author": "Robin", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/657602801592?comment_id=657608639892", "anchor": "fb-657608639892", "service": "fb", "text": "Rules against perpetual trust exist in English common law, but many states have repealed them or modified them.", "timestamp": "1398808941"}, {"author": "Jim", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/657602801592?comment_id=657608909352", "anchor": "fb-657608909352", "service": "fb", "text": "This wouldn't work. The exact manner in which it failed to work would depend on the facts, circumstances, and jurisdiction in which this was tried.", "timestamp": "1398809056"}, {"author": "Arthur", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/657602801592?comment_id=657609358452", "anchor": "fb-657609358452", "service": "fb", "text": "The RAP is one of the most widely disliked facets of the common law and has basically been rejected in most places. A majority of US states has outright repealed it (and most of those have taken your advice of replacing the RAP with a flat 90 year limit).
Other jurisdictions openly encourage the avoidance of the RAP through the creation of artificial persons, including liberal use of the cy pres doctrine to allow executors broad authority to create entities not named in the actual will in order to closely carry out the will's intent. Or they just make the RAP moot by extending the time period ridiculously long (a matter of centuries, i.e. longer than our current governing system is likely to exist).", "timestamp": "1398809432"}, {"author": "Arthur", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/657602801592?comment_id=657609867432", "anchor": "fb-657609867432", "service": "fb", "text": "People hate the RAP for good reason, because its good intentions aside the way it's constructed makes all kinds of bizarrely counterintuitive results possible without recourse to futuristic technology.", "timestamp": "1398809574"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/657602801592?comment_id=657623515082", "anchor": "fb-657623515082", "service": "fb", "text": "@Arthur: \"A majority of US states has outright repealed it (and most of those have taken your advice of replacing the RAP with a flat 90 year limit)\"
You're talking about the Uniform Statutory Rule against Perpetuities, right? \"This statute provides a 90-year wait-and-see period. If an interest violates the common law Rule against Perpetuities, we do not declare it invalid. Instead we wait and see whether it actually vests within 90 years. If it does, the interest is valid.\" This fixes the most harmful aspect of the traditional Rule, where the \"logical\" possibility that someone might, say, have more kids would invalidate a bequest even if they were 80 and in fact never did have more kids.
The effect of this change is to make *more* interests valid than would otherwise be, and the dependence on a marker life remains.", "timestamp": "1398816013"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1398866201647", "service": "gp", "text": "@Lucas\n\u00a0\"limited to human lives?\"\n
\n
\nYes, that's the interpretation.", "timestamp": 1398866201}, {"author": "Daniel", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/104241554778763268733", "anchor": "gp-1402056991223", "service": "gp", "text": "@Lucas\n Otherwise I could probably find a tree, or a member of a biologically immortal (\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_immortality\n) species, and have that protected by the trust.", "timestamp": 1402056991}, {"author": "Daniel", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/104241554778763268733", "anchor": "gp-1402057150218", "service": "gp", "text": "Another problem is the wording \"twenty-one years after the death of\". Is that clinical death? Legal death? Probably not information theoretic death; most laws don't recognize that as a thing yet. But if it's clinical death, then what if that person gets a heart attack, undergoes clinical death, and then undergoes CPR and lives for another three decades? I'm not aware of anybody having been revived after legal death, but it wouldn't surprise me if there was at least one case where the doctors wrongly declared somebody legally dead and then revined them.", "timestamp": 1402057150}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1402067006678", "service": "gp", "text": "@Daniel\n\u00a0 \"I'm not aware of anybody having been revived after legal death\"\n
\n
\nHere's a pretty extreme example:\u00a0\nhttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/12/us/declared-legally-dead-as-he-sat-before-the-judge.html\n
\n
\nA man who disappeared was declared legally dead, and while he's now returned he waited too long to appeal this ruling so the judge declared him to still be dead.", "timestamp": 1402067006}, {"author": "Daniel", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/104241554778763268733", "anchor": "gp-1402086465765", "service": "gp", "text": "That's... interesting on several levels. If he dies of a heart attack, will the doctors make a second death certificate? If I were to shoot him, could I legally be charged with murder (whether I would be charged with murder whether or not it matched the law is a different issue and I'm fairly confident I would be)? What about \"desecrating a corpse\"? If he signed up for cryonics, could Alcor legally cryopreserve him before clinical death? I'll see if I can find out more about the case.", "timestamp": 1402086465}]}