## Facts

- Samuel P. Colt died in 1921 leaving a will that created multiple testamentary trusts, including a residuary trust establishing successive beneficial interests across generations.
- Under the residuary trust, life estates were granted to designated first life tenants (including Roswell Colt); upon each first life tenant’s death, that tenant’s share passed to the tenant’s surviving children for life (second life tenants); upon the death of those second life tenants, their shares passed in fee simple to their surviving children.
- At the testator’s death, Roswell had a child who was already living; Roswell later had additional children, including Caldwell C. Colt and Melba C. Delmouzos, who became second life tenants even though they were not lives in being at the testator’s death.
- Caldwell had two children (Samuel Peshmalyn Colt and Julia Wedgwood Colt), and Melba had one child (Merika I. Delmouzos); these great-grandchildren claimed the fee-simple remainder after the deaths of their respective parent second life tenants.
- After Caldwell’s death, the trustee, Fleet National Bank, sought instructions on whether the rule against perpetuities invalidated the great-grandchildren’s remainder interests because Caldwell and Melba were not lives in being at the testator’s death.
- The Superior Court certified a question to the Rhode Island Supreme Court on whether the rule against perpetuities barred the great-grandchildren from taking under the testamentary plan.

## Issues

1. Whether the rule against perpetuities invalidates remainder interests in fee granted to the children of second life tenants when those second life tenants were not lives in being at the testator’s death (or at the first life tenant’s death).
2. Whether, at least as to great-grandchildren positioned to take upon the death of a second life tenant, the testamentary gifts can be enforced consistent with the rule against perpetuities.

## Decision

- The court answered the certified question in the affirmative: the children of second life tenants may take their parent’s share as ultimate remaindermen, provided the interests vest within the limits of the rule against perpetuities.
- The court limited its holding to children “in a position to inherit immediately,” i.e., those whose remainder interests had become distributable upon the death of the relevant second life tenant.
- The matter was remanded for further proceedings consistent with the court’s answer.

## Legal Principles

- A future interest is invalid under the rule against perpetuities only if, at the time the interest is created, it could vest (if at all) beyond twenty-one years after a life in being.
- In construing a multigenerational testamentary scheme, a court may focus on whether the interests before it have in fact vested (or are presently capable of vesting for distribution) within the permissible period, rather than voiding interests based solely on abstract remote-vesting possibilities.
- A court may resolve a perpetuities challenge narrowly by sustaining presently maturing remainders while reserving questions about more remote, non-immediate contingencies for later determination if they arise.

## Conclusion

The court held that the rule against perpetuities did not bar the great-grandchildren’s remainder interests to the extent they were ready for immediate distribution upon the death of a second life tenant, and it upheld those immediate takers’ rights while limiting any broader ruling about hypothetical remote vesting.


Fleet Nat'l Bank v. Colt, 529 A.2d 122 (R.I. 1987)