## Facts

- A testator died in 1943 leaving a will that devised Illinois real property through a sequence of future interests.
- The will granted John Warren (the testator’s grandchild) a life estate in the property.
- The will provided that, at Warren’s death, the property would pass to Warren’s “then living child or children, or survivors thereof.”
- If there were no descendants of Warren’s child or children, the will provided an alternative gift to Warren’s sisters (and, depending on survivorship, their descendants).
- If neither the sisters nor their descendants could take at the relevant time, the will provided a further alternative gift to the testator’s legal heirs.
- In 1988, while Warren, his two sons, and his two sisters were alive, Warren filed an action to quiet title.
- Warren contended the alternative gift to the sisters violated the common-law Rule Against Perpetuities because it could vest too remotely if his sons took at his death but later died without descendants.

## Issues

1. Whether the will’s alternative gifts (particularly the gift over to Warren’s sisters and related gifts) created future interests that might vest beyond lives in being plus 21 years, in violation of the common-law Rule Against Perpetuities.

## Decision

- The appellate court affirmed summary judgment for the sisters.
- The court held the testamentary scheme did not violate the Rule Against Perpetuities.
- The court concluded the contingent and alternative remainders necessarily vested or failed, if at all, at Warren’s death, a life in being when the interests were created.

## Legal Principles

- Under the common-law Rule Against Perpetuities, a future interest is valid only if it must vest, if at all, no later than 21 years after a life in being at the creation of the interest.
- Rule Against Perpetuities analysis begins by classifying the present and future interests created by the instrument and identifying any conditions precedent to vesting.
- Where a will ties determination of the takers to the death of a named life tenant (a life in being), alternative contingent remainders that are resolved at that death satisfy the Rule Against Perpetuities.
- A party’s hypothetical scenario of later divestment after initial possession does not establish a perpetuities violation when, as a matter of construction, the class entitled to take is fixed at the measuring life’s death.

## Conclusion

The court upheld the will’s sequence of alternative contingent remainders because the identity of the takers was determined at the life tenant’s death, ensuring that the interests necessarily vested or failed within the perpetuities period; summary judgment for the sisters was affirmed.


Warren v. Albrecht, 571 N.E.2d 1179 (Ill. App. Ct. 5th Dist. 1991)