## Facts

- In 1938, Paul Himmelfarb created an irrevocable inter vivos trust (amended in 1941) directing trustees to accumulate income during his lifetime and, after his death, to pay income to his children in equal life shares, with the corpus to pass to grandchildren after the last child’s death.
- The trust included a condition disqualifying any child or grandchild from receiving trust income or corpus if the person “shall have married or be married to” someone not of the Jewish faith.
- After Paul’s death in 1968, Morton Himmelfarb (a son and lifetime income beneficiary) was treated as disqualified because he married outside the Jewish faith.
- Rather than paying Morton, the trustees paid the disputed income share to an escrow agent pending resolution of the clause’s validity.
- In 1975, in related family-trust litigation, the trustees and family beneficiaries entered a consent judgment agreeing to support Morton’s effort to invalidate the disqualification clause.
- The trustees filed a declaratory-judgment action naming children, grandchildren, and the escrow agent, seeking a declaration that the clause was invalid on constitutional, public-policy, and restraint-on-marriage grounds.
- No beneficiary with a beneficial interest opposed invalidation; the trial court appointed a guardian ad litem to argue in favor of the clause.

## Issues

1. Whether a court should exercise equitable jurisdiction to issue declaratory relief interpreting or ruling on the validity of a trust provision when no present, adversarial controversy exists among interested beneficiaries.
2. Whether a trust clause conditioning benefits on marrying within a particular religion is an invalid restraint on marriage or otherwise unlawful (not reached).

## Decision

- The District of Columbia Court of Appeals reversed and remanded.
- The court held the trial court erred by issuing a broad ruling on the clause’s interpretation and validity despite the absence of a real contest between parties with genuinely adverse interests.
- The court declined to express any view on the substantive validity of the religious-marriage condition.
- The court indicated that, given the beneficiaries’ prior consent judgment and litigation posture, no interested beneficiary could later be heard to challenge payments to Morton, reducing any need for an advisory ruling.

## Legal Principles

- Declaratory relief in equity requires a concrete dispute between parties with genuinely adverse interests; courts should not decide collusive or nonadversarial cases to render advisory opinions.
- Trustees may seek judicial guidance when genuinely uncertain about duties, but a court should decline equitable jurisdiction once it becomes apparent that no beneficiary presents an actual contest.
- The appointment of a guardian ad litem to argue a position does not, by itself, supply the genuine adversity required for justiciability when interested beneficiaries are not adverse.

## Conclusion

The appellate court vacated the trial court’s merits ruling upholding the trust’s religious-marriage disqualification clause because the action lacked a genuine, adversarial controversy among interested beneficiaries, and it remanded with instructions to decline equitable jurisdiction rather than issue an advisory declaratory judgment.


Himmelfarb v. Horwitz, 536 A.2d 86 (D.C. 1987)