A Small Step for an Impatient Beneficiary

Once upon a time . . . in 1841, the English Court of Chancery ruled that a beneficiary could petition to terminate a trust in clear violation of the terms of the trust and the intentions of the settlor. That case, Saunders v. Vautier,¹ disregarded hundreds of years of trust law and unintentionally opened the door to perhaps the most drastic and damaging change to trust law than any other decision related to trusts.