Court Opinion

ID: 8039964
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-09 03:28:16.878364+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:37:17.319174
License: Public Domain

Boslaugh, J.,
dissenting in part.
I am unable to agree with that part of the majority opinion which holds that all restraints on alienation, whether direct or indirect, are invalid. Both the Restatement of the Law of Property and Simes and Smith, The Law of Future Interests, recognize that some indirect restraints are valid. See, Restatement, Property, §§ 406, 407, pp. 2392, 2415; Simes and Smith, The Law of Future Interests (2d Ed.), §§ 1112, 1115, 1116, pp. 4, 7, 9.
As stated in Simes and Smith: “In brief, the law is concerned primarily with practical alienability, not with a theoretical power of alienation. All these rules tend primarily to further practical alienability. Whether a given provision will be held valid or not depends on a number of considerations, but, reduced to their lowest terms, these considerations amount to no more than this: One must consider, first, the extent to which the sort of provision in question tends to decrease practical alien-*397ability; and, second, the purpose of the restraint in question. * * * This difference leads to a further generalization which seems warranted by the specific rules discussed in the following chapters: If the restraint is direct, it may be bad regardless of the length of time it is to last. On the other hand, if the restraint is indirect, it will invariably be valid if it is to terminate within a life or lives in being and twenty-one years beyond; but, if it is to last longer than that period, the indirect restraint may be bad.” §§ 1115, 1116, pp. 8, 10. In my opinion the restraint involved in this case is invalid because it fails to satisfy the requirements stated in Restatement, Property, paragraphs (c) and (d) of section 406, pp. 2395, 2396.