Fourth Volume of Restatement of the Law Third, Trusts

The American Law Institute has published the fourth and final volume of Restatement of the Law Third, Trusts. An overview of all four volumes is below:

In 1959 the Restatement Second replaced the original Restatement of Trusts, published in 1935. Both the original Restatement and the Restatement Second are now out of print, having been superseded by the Restatement Third of Trusts.

Restatement of the Law Third, Trusts

The Restatement Third of Trusts began with a revision of the Prudent Investor portions of the Second Restatement, which was completed and published in a single volume in 1992. In 2003, the Institute published Volumes 1 and 2 of Restatement Third, which cover the nature, creation, and elements of trusts; interests and rights of beneficiaries; and trust modification and termination. Published in 2007, Volume 3 deals with trustee powers and duties and incorporates an updated version of the earlier Prudent Investor volume. The fourth and final volume, published in 2012, covers trust administration, particularly breaches of trust and the appropriate legal remedies.

These thoroughly reconsidered and reformulated volumes draw both on court decisions and on statutes to provide a contemporary treatment of trust law, offering authoritative guidance to legislators, to judges, and especially to those who counsel trustees and beneficiaries and who endeavor to draft instruments that will accurately reflect the lawful intentions of donors. The new Restatement’s extensive treatment of charitable trusts provides valuable guidance and rationale — with Illustrations drawn from timely contemporary fact patterns and issues — as to what courts may or may not regard as legitimate charitable purposes and what are appropriate applications of the cy pres doctrine.