## Facts

- Sidney Louis Hyatt died unmarried and without children, leaving a will.
- Clause II stated an objective to dispose of assets totaling $600,000 to fully use the federal unified credit.
- Clause II made eight specific bequests totaling about $260,000.
- Clause II further provided that, absent “full and complete instructions,” the executor could appoint “the persons to receive something under this Clause II and what each is to receive” in the executor’s “sole and absolute discretion,” consistent with Clause II’s stated objective.
- Clause II prohibited use of the appointment power to increase or enlarge any bequest made to any person serving as executor.
- The testator’s nephew, Louis S. Hyatt, claimed Clause II did not fully dispose of the relevant property and that any remainder should pass by intestate succession.
- The executor, O. Max Leach, asserted Clause II created a valid limited power of appointment that completed the disposition of the property covered by Clause II.

## Issues

1. Whether a noncharitable limited power of appointment in a will is valid when it does not expressly designate a class of beneficiaries, but authorizes the executor to select recipients and amounts subject to stated objectives and an anti-self-dealing restriction.
2. Whether Clause II effected a valid disposition of the property covered by that clause, or instead left a remainder passing by intestacy.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Virginia reversed the trial court.
- The Court held the limited power of appointment in Clause II was valid and enforceable despite the absence of an expressly defined beneficiary class.
- The Court entered final judgment for the executor, upholding Clause II as a valid disposition and rejecting intestate succession as to the property governed by Clause II.

## Legal Principles

- A power of appointment is a delegation of authority to a named person to dispose of an interest vested in another; the testator is the donor, the holder is the donee, and recipients are appointees.
- A limited (special) power of appointment for noncharitable purposes is not invalid solely because it does not identify a specific beneficiary class, where the instrument manifests intent to delegate selection and provides identifiable objectives or constraints guiding the exercise of discretion.
- Wills are construed to give effect to the testator’s intent as expressed in the instrument as a whole, and courts favor constructions that uphold testamentary dispositions and avoid partial intestacy.
- Discretionary appointment authority is not treated as unlimited where the will supplies substantive limits, including purpose-based constraints and explicit prohibitions against self-dealing.

## Conclusion

The court enforced the will’s limited power of appointment, holding that the testator’s stated tax-driven objective and anti-self-dealing restriction supplied sufficient guidance to validate the executor’s discretionary selection of recipients and amounts, thereby avoiding intestacy for the property governed by Clause II.


Leach v. Hyatt, 423 S.E.2d 165 (Va. 1992)