Opinion ID: 2284440
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Exclusivity of Official Enforcement Power

Text: As distinguished from a private trust, which is characterized by identified beneficiaries who enjoy equitable ownership of the property and for whose benefit the trustees are obliged to act, in a charitable trust the obligation of the trustee is to apply the trust res for some form of public benefit, and persons who receive[] advantages from the administration of the trust do so because they are conduits through whom the social gains flow, and not necessarily because they have a property interest in the trust assets. G. BOGERT, THE LAW OF TRUSTS AND TRUSTEES § 411, at 407 (2d ed. rev. 1977); RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TRUSTS, chap. 11 introductory note (1959) (fundamental distinction between private and charitable trusts is that, in charitable trust, property is devoted to purposes beneficial to the community). Though specific individuals or members of a class of individuals may receive a benefit from time to time, because the interest in ensuring that charitable trust property is put to proper purposes is properly that of the community at large, the traditional rule has been that only a public officer, usually the state Attorney General, has standing to bring an action to enforce the terms of the trust. See RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TRUSTS, supra, § 391 & comment a ; 4A W. FRATCHER, THE LAW OF TRUSTS § 391, at 356-60 (4th ed. 1989); G. BOGERT, supra, § 411, at 409-11. [9] Principally, the rationale for vesting exclusive power in a public officer stems from the inherent impossibility of establishing a distinct justiciable interest on the part of a member of a large and constantly shifting benefited class, and the recurring burdens on the trust res and trustee of vexatious litigation that would result from recognition of a cause of action by any and all of a large number of individuals who might benefit incidentally from the trust. G. BOGERT, supra, § 411, at 414.