Estate of Holt
Supreme Court of Hawai'i
857 P.2d 1355 (1993)
Holt's testamentary trust directed distribution to his "heirs" without specifying a termination date, and a 1957 court decision had already determined that at the time of Holt's wife's death, his "heirs" for measuring-lives purposes were his eleven then-living children rather than his grandchildren, who were only potential heirs pending their own parents' deaths; the trustee (plaintiff) sought a termination-date determination after the last of those eleven children died in 1986, and a guardian ad litem for unknown beneficiaries (defendant) argued the measuring lives should instead be the twelve grandchildren living at Holt's death.
Whether, where a trust fails to specify a termination date, but the trust income is payable to the settlor's heirs, the heirs serve as the measuring lives for determining when the trust must terminate under the rule against perpetuities.