Obermeyer v. Bank of America, N.A.

Dr. Joseph Kimbrough, a dentist who had studied and taught at Washington University's dental school, established a trust for his niece and nephews with the remainder, upon their deaths, to pass outright to the university's Dental Alumni Development Fund benefiting the dental school; Kimbrough died in 1963, but the university terminated the fund in 1965 and closed the dental school entirely in 1991, though some of its dental practice was folded into the university's medical school. After Kimbrough's last surviving niece or nephew died in 2000, his more distant relatives (plaintiffs) sued to construe the trust, and the circuit court applied the cy pres doctrine to direct the remainder to the university for two dental professorships; the relatives appealed.