Court Opinion

ID: 9648116
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:03:36.424905+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:56.478815
License: Public Domain

George Rose Smith, J., concurring. I agree with the majority’s reasoning and conclusion, but I would express somewhat more emphatically my disagreement with the decision in Atkinson v. Lyle, 191 Ark. 61, 85 S. W. 2d 715. Insofar as that case holds that a court of equity is without power to permit any deviation from the exact language of a charitable trust I think the decision to be erroneous, and I would overrule it outright. The power of chancery to sanction a deviation is generally recognized in the case of private trusts as well as charitable trusts. Rest., Trusts, §§ 167 and 381. We have approved the doctrine with respect to private trusts, as in Biscoe v. State, 23 Ark. 592, where we said that if the compensation fixed by the declaration of trust was insufficient to attract competent trustees a court of equity could make an order for additional compensation. The power is even more urgently needed in the field of charitable trusts, where the public interest demands that the trust be protected from destruction owing to some change in circumstances not foreseen by the settlor. We have often applied the cy pres doctrine, which permits the court to apply the property of a charitable trust to some similar objective when the settlor’s original purpose fails. McCarroll v. Grand Lodge, 154 Ark. 376, 243 S. W. 870; State ex rel. Atty. Gen. v. Van Buren School Dist. No. 42, 191 Ark. 1096, 89 S. W. 2d 605. If we are willing to approve a principle that permits the fundamental purpose of the trust to be changed, as the cy pres doctrine does, there is no sound reason for refusing to permit a deviation in mere administrative detail. We actually approved a deviation in the recent case of Donaghey Foundation v. Little Rock University, 231 Ark. 748, 332 S. W. 2d 497, and I think we should take the present opportunity to set all doubts at rest by specifically overruling the contrary doctrine that was announced in Atkinson v. Lyle. Holt and Robinson, JJ., join in this concurrence.