## Facts

- Celia Kahn died in 1986 with a will naming her nephew, Jack Alter, as personal representative, giving him household goods and personal effects, and leaving the residuary probate estate to her nieces, Sharon Zuckerman and Beverly Kanter.
- Most of Kahn’s assets were held in a brokerage account that passed outside the will under a 1982 inter vivos trust naming Kahn as settlor and sole trustee and providing benefits to Alter.
- Kahn used a standardized trust form she obtained and completed herself.
- The trust instrument was notarized but not signed in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.
- Zuckerman and Kanter challenged the trust, arguing it had testamentary characteristics and was invalid without will-execution formalities, which would cause the brokerage assets to pass through the will’s residuary clause.

## Issues

1. Whether Fla. Stat. § 689.075(1)(g) (1989) creates a single cumulative test or two alternative tests for validity of an inter vivos trust when the settlor is the sole trustee.
2. Whether such a trust must satisfy will-execution formalities when it functions primarily to transfer property at the settlor’s death.
3. Whether the trust was “otherwise valid” as an inter vivos trust of personal property under Florida law despite informality and lack of two witnesses.

## Decision

- The Florida Supreme Court approved the district court’s decision reversing summary judgment for Zuckerman and Kanter.
- The Court held § 689.075(1)(g) creates two alternative tests for validating a settlor-as-sole-trustee inter vivos trust.
- Because Kahn’s trust was otherwise valid as an inter vivos trust under Florida law, it was valid even though it did not comply with will-execution formalities.
- The brokerage account assets passed under the trust to Alter rather than through the will’s residuary clause.

## Legal Principles

- Under Fla. Stat. § 689.075(1)(g) (1989), a settlor-as-sole-trustee inter vivos trust is valid if it satisfies either of two alternative execution standards: (1) the formalities required for an inter vivos trust in the relevant jurisdiction, or (2) the formalities required for wills in that jurisdiction.
- Disjunctive statutory wording (“either/or”) is construed to establish alternative, not cumulative, compliance paths when the text plainly indicates separate methods of validation.
- An inter vivos trust of personal property may be valid even if informal, including when evidenced by a writing (or even parol), so long as the language used is sufficient to manifest creation of a trust.
- A trust is not rendered testamentary solely because its primary dispositive effect occurs at death where the arrangement creates present legal consequences during life (including retained control/benefits by the settlor and a beneficial interest, even contingent, in another).

## Conclusion

The court held that Florida’s statute governing inter vivos trusts with the settlor as sole trustee permits alternative execution methods; therefore, a trust that is otherwise valid as an inter vivos trust is not invalidated for lack of will formalities, and the trust assets pass according to the trust rather than the will.


Zuckerman v. Alter, 615 So. 2d 661 (Fla. 1993)