Article: Conflict of Laws and the Transitivity of the “Relation Back” of Special Powers of Appointment

James P. Spica recently published an article entitled, Conflict of Laws and the Transitivity of the “Relation Back” of Special Powers of Appointment, Real Property, Trust & Estate Law Journal. Provided below is an abstract of the Article:

Section 274(a) of the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws describes a choice-of-law deployment of the so-called “relation back theory” of powers of appointment. The Restatement suggests that analogies to local-law exemplifications of the relation back theory in cases concerning remoteness of vesting and resulting trusts will allow a judge to derive—or at least assist a judge in deriving—the rule of section 274(a) in a conflicts case of first impression. This Article explores that suggestion by noting that, in the perpetuities and resulting trusts contexts, the relation back is transitive over successively gener-ated special powers of appointment and then examining a suite of hypothetical conflicts cases in which that transitivity, if recognized for choice of law purposes, would be decisive.