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THE TRUST AGREEMENT INDICATED THE DECEDENT INTENDED A CHARITABLE GIFT BE MADE TO A PARTICULAR LOCAL CATHOLIC SCHOOL WHICH HAD CLOSED, NOT TO THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH WHICH HAD OPERATED THE CLOSED SCHOOL 3RD DEPT.

The Third Department determined the intent of the decedent was to support a particular local (Oneonta) Catholic school with a charitable gift. The school had closed in 2011. The trustee wanted to distribute the gift equally to the two other named beneficiaries of the trust. Respondents, St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, New York and Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, New York, which operated the closed school, argued the gift should be made to them. The court looked at the nature of the trust as a whole and determined the intent of the gift was to benefit the particular school which closed, not the larger Roman Catholic church generally:

The gift to the school was “charitable in nature and, for cy pres relief [to be appropriate], it was further necessary that the instrument[] establishing the gift[] revealed a general charitable intent and that circumstances had changed rendering impracticable or impossible strict compliance with the terms of the gift instrument[]”… . Strict compliance with the terms of the trust agreement was impossible due to the closure of the school. We accordingly turn to whether the evidence evinces a general charitable intent on the part of decedent, defined “as a desire to give to charity generally, rather than merely to give to a particular object or institution” … . In answering that question, we will read the trust agreement in its entirety and afford its words “their ordinary and natural meaning” … .

Turning to that agreement, all of the institutions to which decedent made gifts are in the City of Oneonta, Otsego County, suggesting an intent to limit her largesse to organizations in that area. When viewed in that context, a direction to distribute part of the residuary trust corpus “to the [school at] 5588 State Route 7, Oneonta, New York 13820” indicates a desire to support a school at that location rather than religious education projects in general. This reading is bolstered by the silence of the trust agreement as to decedent’s Catholic faith and the absence of gifts to the parish or other Roman Catholic institutions. Matter of Gurney, 2017 NY Slip Op 05902, 3rd Dept 7-27-17

TRUSTS AND ESTATES (CY PRES, THE TRUST AGREEMENT INDICATED THE DECEDENT INTENDED A CHARITABLE GIFT BE MADE TO A PARTICULAR LOCAL CATHOLIC SCHOOL WHICH HAD CLOSED, NOT TO THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH WHICH HAD OPERATED THE CLOSED SCHOOL 3RD DEPT)/CY PRES (THE TRUST AGREEMENT INDICATED THE DECEDENT INTENDED A CHARITABLE GIFT BE MADE TO A PARTICULAR LOCAL CATHOLIC SCHOOL WHICH HAD CLOSED, NOT TO THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH WHICH HAD OPERATED THE CLOSED SCHOOL 3RD DEPT)/CHARITABLE GIFTS (TRUSTS, CY PRES, THE TRUST AGREEMENT INDICATED THE DECEDENT INTENDED A CHARITABLE GIFT BE MADE TO A PARTICULAR LOCAL CATHOLIC SCHOOL WHICH HAD CLOSED, NOT TO THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH WHICH HAD OPERATED THE CLOSED SCHOOL 3RD DEPT)

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