Donor’s Executor Lacks Standing Under Statutes or Common Law
The decedent’s will gave her executors discretion to distribute her residuary estate to a charitable organization of their choosing. The executors delivered more than $8,000,000 to the selected charity under a letter of intent describing the use to be made of the funds. The charity then changed its strategy and put the funds to uses different from those outlined in the letter of intent. The executors brought a proceeding for an accounting which was dismissed. The intermediate Missouri appellate court affirmed the dismissal. The court explained that (1) the plain language of Missouri’s version of the UTC gives donor standing only to settlors of charitable trusts, (2) donor standing is not given under Missouri’s version of UPMIFA, (3) the rationale for extending standing to donors is the possibility that the Attorney General will not provide supervision but here the executors did not attempt to involve the Attorney General, and (4) cy pres is not applicable because the gift did not fail.