# The Rule Against Perpetuities
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rule-against-perpetuities/618259
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [April 9, 2012, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rule-against-perpetuities/618259 "2012-04-09T14:41:28Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rule-against-perpetuities/618259/21 "2012-04-10T01:36:10Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#):
>
> This is my understanding of the rule and the best in the thread so far. I think what needs to be added is that if there is a possibility that the trust will not vest within 21 years of specific lives now being lived, the rule is violated.
>
> Also, at depositions, I have seen a counsel object to an overly long and complex question with “objection, violates the rule against perpetuities.” This is hilarious if it isn’t a pattern of disruption. Ah, legal humor. I also remember once that an opposing counsel’s objection was punctuated with an earthquake, to which he added at the end: “and God objects too!”
Heh.
My first boss at the PD’s office told us about a time when he was up against a female prosecutor who, in the middle of arguing a motion, gave a muffled shriek and leapt away from her table. The judge asked her what was wrong and she pointed at the table, explaining there was a bug crawling on her notepad.
My boss immediately rose and said, “Move to quash, Your Honor.”
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### Author:  [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rule-against-perpetuities/618259/22 "2012-04-10T01:37:43Z")
> [@jtgain](#):
>
> What if that 80 year old’s child becomes a precocious toddler who marries an unborn widow named Shelley?
And lives at Blackacre?
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### Author:  [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rule-against-perpetuities/618259/23 "2012-04-10T02:27:19Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#):
>
> This is my understanding of the rule and the best in the thread so far. I think what needs to be added is that if there is a possibility that the trust will not vest within 21 years of specific lives now being lived, the rule is violated.
So you couldn’t make a trust that expire "21 years after the Disney Coporation loses copyright to the characters in the movie “Tangled”? Even though both Disney and Tangled both now exist and copyright is (theoretically) limited? If so, how does the current state of copyright law not violate the RAP?
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### Author:  [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rule-against-perpetuities/618259/24 "2012-04-10T03:12:06Z")
> [@Zakalwe](#):
>
> So you couldn’t make a trust that expire "21 years after the Disney Coporation loses copyright to the characters in the movie “Tangled”? Even though both Disney and Tangled both now exist and copyright is (theoretically) limited? If so, how does the current state of copyright law not violate the RAP?
It is a common law rule, and there is no federal common law, see Erie Railroad (I think, it was a quarter century ago). So federal laws don’t have a RAP. Second, and more importantly, corporations are not people. Corporations are the fascist bedrock of this goosestepping strip searching for a speeding tickets love it or leave it ACLU free nation!! Laws apply even less to corporations than they do governments.
To sum up: RAP does not have an affect (or is it effect) on federal copyright laws. Which, by the way, are currently written at the behest of Disney, as you have so adroitly pointed out.
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### Author:  [@barbitu8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barbitu8)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rule-against-perpetuities/618259/25 "2012-04-10T09:19:55Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#):
>
> To sum up: RAP does not have an affect (or is it effect) on federal copyright laws. Which, by the way, are currently written at the behest of Disney, as you have so adroitly pointed out.
It is “effect.” “Effect” is a noun, which too many people replace with “impact.” “Affect” is the verb, unless you are referring to a psychological condition.
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### Author:  [@Ken001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ken001)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rule-against-perpetuities/618259/26 "2012-04-10T10:59:48Z")
> [@barbitu8](#):
>
> The common law rule against perpetuities is that no interest in property is good unless it must vest, if at all, not later than 21 years, plus period of gestation, after some life or lives in being at time of creation of interest.
>
> The gestation period is approximately 9 months. Sperms or ovae in vivo are not “lives in being” and it is the “period of gestation” not the actual gestation, but such cells would not be in gestation anyway.
Quite right.
“En ventre sa mere” is the critical rule and you can’t be en ventre while in a test-tube. 😃
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### Author:  [@Ken001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ken001)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rule-against-perpetuities/618259/27 "2012-04-10T12:59:52Z")
> [@jbaker](#):
>
> Ah, legal humor. For the 99.44% of the audience who are not lawyers: jtgain is referring to the second most infamous rule of property law, the Rule in Shelley’s Case. If you’re still curious, see the description in Wikipedia, which will confuse you to your heart’s content.
Ah thankyou I’d forgotten all that. Far in the misty past.
Sadly the Wiki article made complete sense, even worse I found it interesting. 😉 Its the rationale for placing an estate in the hands of trustees to hold for the life of the widow/er then in remainder to the heirs - as opposed to creating a life estate for the widow in her own hands. Actually we can do that here but its rare.
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### Author:  [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rule-against-perpetuities/618259/28 "2012-04-10T16:44:30Z")
> [@Zakalwe](#):
>
> If so, how does the current state of copyright law not violate the RAP?
The one has nothing to do with the other. But as a rule, the legislature can always change the common law, including the RAP – common law is the body of rules that obtains when the legislature hasn’t spoken.
–Cliffy
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### Author:  [@jbaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jbaker)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rule-against-perpetuities/618259/29 "2012-04-10T17:31:27Z")
> [@Ken001](#):
>
> Ah thankyou I’d forgotten all that. Far in the misty past.
>
> Sadly the Wiki article made complete sense, even worse I found it interesting. 😉 Its the rationale for placing an estate in the hands of trustees to hold for the life of the widow/er then in remainder to the heirs - as opposed to creating a life estate for the widow in her own hands. Actually we can do that here but its rare.
Personally, I found the discussion in Wikipedia a little difficult to follow (and I feel sure that a non-lawyer would have even more trouble). I prefer the description in Black’s:
“Rule in Shelley’s Case. (18c) Property. The rule that if — in a single grant — a freehold estate is given to a person and a remainder is given to the person’s heirs, the remainder belongs to the named person and not the heirs, so that the person is held to have a fee simple absolute. • The rule, which dates from the 14th century but draws its name from the famous 16th-century case, has been abolished in most states. Wolfe v. Shelley, 76 Eng. Rep. 206 (K.B. 1581).
“[T]he rule in Shelley’s Case, the Don Quixote of the law, which, like the last knight errant of chivalry, has long survived every cause that gave it birth and now wanders aimlessly through the reports, still vigorous, but equally useless and dangerous.” Stamper v. Stamper, 28 S.E. 20, 22 (N.C. 1897).”
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### Author:  [@jbaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jbaker)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rule-against-perpetuities/618259/30 "2012-04-10T17:34:50Z")
Incidentally, I checked to see if the discussion of the rule against perpetuities is clearer in the novel The Descendants, upon which the movie is based. The novel does not mention the rule, and the facts are a bit different: the property is controlled by its owners, and the narrator simply has a larger share than the other owners.
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### Author:  [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2012, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rule-against-perpetuities/618259/31 "2012-04-11T11:34:49Z")
> [@jbaker](#):
>
> Personally, I found the discussion in Wikipedia a little difficult to follow (and I feel sure that a non-lawyer would have even more trouble). I prefer the description in Black’s:
>
> “Rule in Shelley’s Case. (18c) Property. The rule that if — in a single grant — a freehold estate is given to a person and a remainder is given to the person’s heirs, the remainder belongs to the named person and not the heirs, so that the person is held to have a fee simple absolute. • The rule, which dates from the 14th century but draws its name from the famous 16th-century case, has been abolished in most states. Wolfe v. Shelley, 76 Eng. Rep. 206 (K.B. 1581).
> “[T]he rule in Shelley’s Case, the Don Quixote of the law, which, like the last knight errant of chivalry, has long survived every cause that gave it birth and now wanders aimlessly through the reports, still vigorous, but equally useless and dangerous.” Stamper v. Stamper, 28 S.E. 20, 22 (N.C. 1897).”
I took Property last year and this is how it was explained to me:
Say you have a nice homestead that you want to keep in the family, but you have a worthless, ne’er do well son. You want his kids to have the property when they grow older, but you are afraid that your son will sell the property and fritter the proceeds away on stuffed animal claw machines.
One thing you could do is give your son a life estate and leave the remainder to his heirs, that way with a life estate, he can’t sell the fee simple in the property. Ah, but the Rule in Shelley’s Case holds that since he has a life estate and a remainder in his heirs, that is in effect, the whole fee simple, so he has everything and can sell.
I think all states have abolished the rule which was originally decided to prevent people from getting around estate taxes by doing the above, but it can screw with a title search for transfers before the rule was abolished. See also Doctrine of Worthier Title.
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### Author:  [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2012, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rule-against-perpetuities/618259/32 "2012-04-11T12:00:54Z")
> [@jbaker](#):
>
> I really don’t like it when movies casually use a legal rule like the rule against perpetuities, but don’t explain how it comes into play. I believe Body Heat did the same thing. In both cases, a couple of sentences could have clarified why it was an issue.
I had no problem with how it was handled in the movie. This thread is quite interesting, but the film would have come to a screeching halt while they stopped to explain all the legalese.
What we _needed_ to know: Clooney and his relatives need to make a decision regarding what to do with their land, and he’s been put in charge. Most want to sell, some don’t. And on with the story. It worked for me.
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### Author:  [@jbaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jbaker)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2012, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rule-against-perpetuities/618259/33 "2012-04-11T14:16:16Z")
> [@Wheelz](#):
>
> I had no problem with how it was handled in the movie. This thread is quite interesting, but the film would have come to a screeching halt while they stopped to explain all the legalese.
>
> What we _needed_ to know: Clooney and his relatives need to make a decision regarding what to do with their land, and he’s been put in charge. Most want to sell, some don’t. And on with the story. It worked for me.
Oh, I don’t think we needed a detailed legal discussion. Really, we didn’t even need the reference to the rule against perpetuities that we got. What I would have liked would have been something like this: “Trusts aren’t allowed to last forever, so the princess’s will said that the trust would have to be dissolved within 21 years after all of her children were dead. Great-uncle Joe died 14 years ago, which leaves us with another 7 years to go at most.”
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### Author:  [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2012, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rule-against-perpetuities/618259/34 "2012-04-13T07:54:21Z")
The author modeled this story after the Campbell Estate Trust in Hawaii. Established in 1900, the trust expired in 2000 and the majority(176) of heirs(save for 3) decided to form the “James Campbell Company”.
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