## Facts

- In 1971, R. Brinkley Smithers informed a charitable hospital that he intended to provide a $10 million gift over time to create and support an alcoholism treatment center.
- Smithers imposed restrictions, including that detailed project plans and key staff appointments required his approval, and that the program would provide rehabilitation in a free-standing, controlled, non-hospital environment.
- Using the initial installment, the hospital purchased a Manhattan building and opened the Smithers Alcoholism Treatment and Training Center there in 1973.
- Smithers remained actively involved and, by 1978, asserted the hospital had not complied with his intent and suspended further funding after more than half the gift had been delivered.
- In 1983, after the hospital expressly agreed to restrictions on use of the funds and the program’s nature, Smithers completed the gift.
- Smithers died in 1994; shortly thereafter, the hospital announced plans to sell the building and relocate the program into the hospital.
- The hospital disclosed that it had transferred endowment funds to its general operating account as “loans”; after notice and investigation, the Attorney General required the funds be restored.
- The Attorney General initially accepted the hospital’s plan to sell the building and allocate only $1 million of sale proceeds to the center, with the remainder to the hospital.

## Issues

1. Whether a donor’s estate has standing to sue a charitable donee to enforce restrictions on a charitable gift, or whether enforcement authority rests exclusively with the Attorney General.
2. Whether the donor’s retained approval rights, ongoing involvement, alleged diversion of endowment funds, and the Attorney General’s shifting positions justified recognizing standing in the donor’s estate.

## Decision

- The Appellate Division, First Department, reversed the dismissal for lack of standing.
- The court held that, on the allegations presented, the donor’s estate had standing, alongside the Attorney General, to enforce the terms and restrictions of the charitable gift.
- The matter was remanded for further proceedings on the merits of the claimed violations of the gift conditions.

## Legal Principles

- In New York, the Attorney General generally represents the public interest in enforcing charitable gifts and trusts, and is ordinarily the party with enforcement authority.
- That general rule is not absolute; a donor or donor’s estate may have standing where the donor imposed specific, enforceable restrictions and retained a direct, continuing interest in the gift’s administration.
- A restricted charitable gift with donor approval rights and ongoing oversight can be treated as having quasi-contractual characteristics supporting enforcement by the donor’s estate.
- Donor standing may be recognized as a supplement to, not a displacement of, the Attorney General’s role, particularly where public enforcement appears inconsistent or inadequate to protect the donor’s expressed conditions.

## Conclusion

The court allowed the donor’s estate to proceed to enforce the restricted charitable gift, holding that the estate’s special interest—grounded in detailed conditions and the donor’s retained supervisory role—supported standing in addition to the Attorney General’s authority.


Smithers v. St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hosp. Ctr., 281 A.D.2d 127 (N.Y. App. Div. 1st Dep’t 2001)