## Facts

- Jack Adams executed a codicil creating a testamentary charitable trust funded by the residue of his estate, with Dominion Trust Company as trustee.
- The codicil directed the trustee to pay net income to Prince Edward School Foundation “so long as” its schools admitted only “members of the White Race.”
- The codicil provided successive income gifts to other named private educational institutions on the same “so long as” racial restriction if Prince Edward failed the restriction.
- If all named schools either ceased operating or admitted a non-white student, the trust income was to be paid to Hermitage Methodist Homes of Virginia, Inc., with no racial restriction attached to Hermitage’s interest.
- By the 1980s, each named educational institution had admitted at least one non-white student.
- The trustee filed suit seeking construction of the will and instructions on the enforceability and effect of the racially restrictive provisions.
- The trial court held the racial conditions void, treated the remaining trust as valid, and awarded income to Prince Edward based on the testator’s asserted primary charitable intent to support education.

## Issues

1. Whether the trust’s racially restrictive provisions were unconstitutional and therefore unenforceable.
2. Whether the “so long as” racial language created special limitations that automatically terminated each school’s interest upon admission of a non-white student.
3. Whether cy pres or related equitable reformation could remove the racial restriction while preserving Prince Edward as income beneficiary.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Virginia held the racially discriminatory provisions unconstitutional and unenforceable under the United States and Virginia Constitutions.
- The Court classified the “so long as” and related shifting provisions as special limitations defining the duration of each school’s interest.
- Because each named school had admitted at least one non-white student, each school’s interest terminated by the instrument’s terms, and the income shifted through the sequence to the ultimate beneficiary.
- The Court reversed the trial court and directed that trust income be paid to Hermitage Methodist Homes.

## Legal Principles

- Judicial enforcement of racially discriminatory charitable provisions constitutes impermissible state action; such provisions are unenforceable even if previously authorized by statute.
- Language such as “so long as” commonly creates a special limitation, causing automatic termination of the beneficiary’s interest when the stated event occurs.
- When a trust sets a specific sequence of defeasible gifts, a court may not preserve an earlier beneficiary by severing invalid language if doing so would rewrite the dispositive scheme.
- Cy pres (or similar doctrines) is unavailable where reformation would contradict a donor’s specific, event-driven allocation of benefits among named beneficiaries.

## Conclusion

The court refused to enforce a racially restrictive educational trust, treated the racial “so long as” terms as special limitations that ended each school’s right to income upon admission of non-white students, and awarded the trust income to Hermitage as the final, nonracially conditioned beneficiary.


Hermitage Methodist Homes of Va., Inc. v. Dominion Tr. Co., 239 Va. 46, 387 S.E.2d 740 (Va. 1990)