Adam S Hofri-Winogradow, ‘The Irreducible Cores of Trust Obligations’, 139 Law Quarterly Review 311 (2023), available at SSRN (30 May 2023). Trust settlors transfer gifts to trustees, but intend to benefit only the trust’s beneficiaries. So trust law ensures that trustees, who legally ‘own’ trust property, are constrained in their actions by legal rules and fiduciary standards. But trusts are also malleable, subject to customization to achieve a settlor’s particular purposes. And that is where, according to Adam Hofri-Winogradow, in his article, ‘The Irreducible Cores of Trust Obligations’, a trustee’s obligations rest on ‘an enduring contradiction’. Hofri-Winogradow points out that trustees’ burdens include both duties and liabilities, but that trust settlors sometimes either explicitly exclude certain of these in the trust instrument, or ‘undermine’ them by giving nonfiduciary third parties the power to direct actions of the trustee … (more)
[Kent D Schenke, JOTWELL, 28 November 2023]
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