## Facts

- A testator died in 1901 leaving a will that created a testamentary trust administered by a corporate trustee.
- The will provided successive life interests: first to the testator’s widow for life, then to the testator’s adopted daughter for life, then to the adopted daughter’s children for their lives.
- For each child’s separate share, the will directed that, upon that child’s death, the share would pass absolutely to the persons who were then that child’s “heirs at law.”
- At the testator’s death, the adopted daughter had two children living; she later had two additional children born after the testator’s death.
- After the widow’s and later events affecting the life estates, litigation arose when the after-born children died, requiring the trustee to determine whether the remainders to each deceased child’s “heirs at law” were valid under the Rule Against Perpetuities and, if invalid, how the affected shares should be distributed.
- The trustee filed an action (and later a supplemental pleading) seeking construction of the will and instructions regarding trust administration.

## Issues

1. Whether the will created separate perpetuities “subclasses” (each child’s heirs of that child’s share) rather than a single class gift to the heirs of all the children collectively.
2. Whether remainders to the “heirs at law” of children born after the testator’s death were void under the Rule Against Perpetuities.
3. Whether remainders to the “heirs at law” of children who were alive at the testator’s death were valid under the Rule Against Perpetuities.

## Decision

- The court held the will created separate subclasses: each child’s share passed to that child’s heirs as an independent gift for perpetuities analysis.
- The court ruled the remainders to the “heirs at law” of the children alive at the testator’s death were valid.
- The court ruled the remainders to the “heirs at law” of the children born after the testator’s death were void under the Rule Against Perpetuities.
- The court instructed the trustee to administer and distribute the trust accordingly, treating invalid remainders as failing and distributing those shares under the will’s remaining provisions and applicable law.

## Legal Principles

- A remainder to a person’s “heirs at law” is contingent because the heirs cannot be identified until that person’s death; vesting occurs, if at all, at the death of the designated ancestor.
- Under the Rule Against Perpetuities, a contingent future interest is void if, at creation, there is any possibility that it may vest outside lives in being at the testator’s death plus 21 years.
- Where a testamentary plan creates separate shares for multiple life tenants and directs each share to pass at that life tenant’s death to that life tenant’s heirs, the ultimate takers can be treated as separate subclasses for perpetuities purposes.
- When gifts are separable into subclasses, the invalidity of one subclass under the Rule Against Perpetuities does not automatically invalidate other subclasses that satisfy the rule.

## Conclusion

The court construed the will as creating separate remainders to the heirs of each child’s share, upheld those tied to children who were lives in being at the testator’s death, and voided those tied to after-born children because the interests could vest beyond the perpetuities period.


American Sec. & Tr. Co. v. Cramer, 175 F. Supp. 367 (D.D.C. 1959)