Court Opinion

ID: 9651107
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:06:55.031559+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:26:25.121731
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
President Judge COLINS.
I must respectfully dissent from the majority opinion while, at the same time, comment that it is one of the finest pieces of legal scholarship that I have read in my 25 years on the bench.
The reasons for my dissent follow briefly-
As noted on page 677 of the majority opinion:
As directed by the deed of trust, the members of the School’s Board of Managers are also members of the Board of Directors of the Trust Company. The deed endows the Board of Managers and the Trust Company with decision-making responsibility for all aspects of running the School and for management and administration of Trust assets.
Further, the majority opinion continues on page 678 to state:
The Association is not a division of the School or of the Trust Company. It is not named in the deed of trust and is not an intended beneficiary of the Trust. As the deed states, “[a]ll children shall leave the institution and cease to be the recipients of its benefits upon the completion of the full course of secondary education being offered at the School.” (Reproduced Record at 25a). The Managers of the Trust may, in their discretion, contribute to the higher education of a graduate of the School, in which case graduates would continue to be beneficiaries of the Trust, but generally, once orphans graduate from the School, they are no longer Trust beneficiaries.
Unfortunately, this is where this Court’s inquiry must end. It is clear from the historical background of this saga that the Settlors in no way intended to give the Alumni Association standing in the administration of the Trust. The Settlor, Milton Hershey, was also the creator of the Alumni Association. To now give the Association legal rights that were expressly excluded by the Settlor of the Trust is a dangerous expansion of standing not supported by over 300 years of case law within the Commonwealth.
The Attorney General of the Commonwealth, pursuant to well-accepted principles of “parens patriae,” as noted by the majority:
is the watch dog that supervises the administration of charitable trusts to ensure that the object of the trust remains charitable and to ensure that the charitable purpose of the trust is carried out. Pruner’s Estate. The attorney general has the power to oversee the administration of the trust and, consequently, has standing in any case involving charity. See David Villar Patton, The Queen, The *692Attorney General, and the Modem Charitable Fiduciary: A Historical Perspective on Charitable Enforcement Reform, 11 U. FI. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 131, 159-61 (2000) (outlining the historical development of charitable trust enforcement by the attorney general from 13th Century England through the American Revolution).
To allow the Alumni Association standing, no matter how eleemosynary its purpose may be, interferes with the efficient performance of the Attorney General’s statutorily-mandated duties, as well as being violative of the wishes of the Settlor of the Trust and founder of the Alumni Association.
Such a quantum leap away from historical concepts of standing, based upon public policy considerations, and a judicially-created “special interest,” may only be undertaken by the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth.
Judge COHN JUBELIRER and Judge SIMPSON join in this dissent.