## Facts

- George H. Holt executed a 1914 will creating a residuary testamentary trust and died in 1929, survived by his widow and eleven children.
- The will directed the trust to continue “for as long a period as is legally possible” and to end when “the law requires it,” with income paid to Holt’s widow for life (or widowhood), then to Holt’s “heirs” in equal shares per stirpes, and principal distributed per stirpes to those entitled at termination.
- Earlier litigation construed “heirs” to mean those who would take under intestate succession, with the class potentially changing over time depending on when a distribution was to be determined.
- By 1991, the trust had numerous income beneficiaries, including some grandchildren who were alive at Holt’s death.
- The trustee petitioned the circuit court for instructions to determine the trust’s termination date under the Rule Against Perpetuities (RAP).
- The circuit court ruled the measuring lives were Holt’s eleven children and ordered termination 21 years after the death of the last surviving child; the last child died in 1986, yielding a 2007 termination.
- A guardian ad litem for unascertained or unborn beneficiaries appealed, arguing the measuring lives should be certain grandchildren living at Holt’s death, extending the termination date.

## Issues

1. Whether the trust’s RAP measuring lives were Holt’s eleven children alive when the trust was created or instead Holt’s grandchildren living at Holt’s death.
2. Whether the will’s use of “heirs” required selecting grandchildren rather than children as the relevant lives in being for determining the trust’s maximum lawful duration.

## Decision

- The Hawaiʻi Supreme Court affirmed the circuit court’s instruction fixing the trust’s termination at 21 years after the death of the last surviving one of Holt’s eleven children.
- The court rejected using Holt’s grandchildren as the measuring lives for RAP purposes.
- The court read the will’s “as long as legally possible” language as requiring the trust to continue up to, but not beyond, the maximum period allowed by law.

## Legal Principles

- In a will, a gift “to heirs” refers to persons who succeed under the governing law of intestate succession, unless a contrary intent is shown.
- When a distribution to “heirs” is postponed until the end of a prior estate, the relevant heirs may be determined at the time the prior estate ends, consistent with the testator’s expressed intent and the will’s structure.
- For RAP analysis of a testamentary trust intended to last only as long as legally permitted, the measuring lives should be lives in being at the trust’s creation that reasonably fit the testator’s dispositive plan; courts need not select a later-generation class to extend duration.
- A direction that a trust end when “the law requires it” is construed as incorporating the RAP limit into the instrument’s termination term.

## Conclusion

The court held that Holt’s trust had to terminate within the RAP period measured by Holt’s eleven children who were alive when the trust was created, requiring termination in 2007 (21 years after the last child’s death) and disallowing use of grandchildren as alternative measuring lives to prolong the trust.


Matter of the Estate of Holt, 857 P.2d 1355 (Haw. 1993)