Trust Enforcement — Who has standing?

Edward Halbach, Jr. (Walter Perry Johnson Professor Emeritus, School of Law, University of California, Berkeley) has recently authored an article entitled Standing to Enforce Trusts: Renewing and Expanding Professor Gaubatz’s 1984 Discussion of Settlor Enforcement, 62 U. Miami L. Rev. 713 (2008).

Here is a summary of his article:

The discussion in this essay examines questions of standing in the trust context, including standing to intervene in, as well as standing to initiate and maintain, enforcement proceedings (as comprehensively defined for these purposes). In the course of the discussion, attention is given at appropriate points to the rationale underlying restrictions on standing in trust-enforcement cases, and to the advantages and disadvantages of granting standing for various purposes to various categories of potential litigants. Because these potentially relevant considerations are most apparent and best introduced in the charitable-trust context, rules of standing are discussed first in that setting, then in the context of private trusts, and finally in regard to trusts that have both charitable and private purposes.