Submitted by AudibleNod t3_126ldrd in todayilearned
The first article I read didn't mention the name of the clause. I thought it was a really weird flex to peg the end of the agreement to such a specific yet convoluted event. Turns out it was just an archaic flex.
Me too, I thought it was a really funny thing to make up. I find it even funnier that it's an actual thing.
Read an amusing comment by a law school student who sat through a boring lecture on this and thought “yea right, who uses this?” and he was thrilled by the maneuver. Law schools are gonna love it.
I feel sorry for current 3Ls who are gonna get a Rule Against Perpetuities question on the bar exam this year for sure.
I was just coming here to post TIL about the perpetuity clause. I find the whole CFTOD story and how they were outplayed hilarious.
#longlivelilibet
Two centenarians can be counted among the British royal family. She comes from hearty stock.
Not to be pedantic, (but I’m going to be) but it should be long live George, since it says “descendent of the current monarch” so George and his children (or Charlotte and Louis if there are abdications) would fit that criteria longer than Harry’s children, since they will not be descended from the monarch once Charles passes.
I do find it odd that that method of circumventing the RAP has maintained popularity in American legal documents. You’d think we’d have developed our own Patriotic ‘Murican version like “as long as the Statue of Liberty stands plus X years” or something similar.
You have to use a living person because the whole point of the Rule Against Perpetuities is to ban property from being locked up for too long.
From the Wikipedia article, it seems the Rockefellers are also used.
But royal families have the benefits of officially recorded lineages ensuring no ambiguities about descendents and good living conditions and healthcare ensuring long lives.
Can someone explain this to me please?
Contracts generally need an end. You can’t have a “this is how it will be forever” (in perpetuity) in there, without someone saying that it isn’t legal. So if you want a long contract, but need it to technically end, people came up with the idea of basically saying “as long as anyone currently alive is living (plus some time)” but that isn’t practical and reasonable to test… so who is a high profile person that will live a long time? Members of the Royal Family! This survives today in American contracts (long after our British colonial days) and recently showed up in a well covered Disney contract.
Much more common in the US, is to use a family life. Example: “this trust will last as long as the life of Tom Jones or any of his now living decedents, plus 21 years.” It could be a trust, rental contract, or some other type of contract. Many states have gotten rid of this old 21 year rule, and allow 90 years, 360 years, or even 1000 years.
The point is to not keep property, especially real estate, bound up forever.
To get around the rule against perpetuities (mandating no dispositions could go beyond 21 years after the death of persons living during enactment - IANAL, please), lawyers uses the lives of a defined set of persons. Already in the Deuteronomy, the lifespans of the High Priests were used to determine whether someone in a city of refuge (a TIL in its own right) could go back home. There's also tontines (another TIL).
In some common law jurisdictions, the lives of the British royal family are used because they are a well defined set (no ambiguities about secret members) and their members enjoy a ligh level of life and healthcare (ensuring long lives - see how long lived Elizabeth II with the stress of an official position).
Other states use other figures such as Presidential lives or patrician families (Rockefeller and Kennedy) in the USA or Eamon De Valera's family in Ireland.
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_tonsofsoul_ t1_je9sjuj wrote
You read the Disney deal too? Hilarious stuff.