Sears v. Coolidge
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
108 N.E.2d 563 (1952)
Thomas Coolidge retained a lifetime power to change trust beneficiaries; upon his death, with the power unexercised, the trust's principal-distribution provisions were challenged as potentially violating the rule against perpetuities, since the perpetuity period would ordinarily run from the trust's creation rather than the later date the beneficiary class was actually fixed by Thomas's death.
Whether, when a donee fails to exercise a special or testamentary power of appointment, a court may take a "second look" and consider the circumstances known at the time of the donee's death when determining whether a default interest created by the failure to exercise the power is valid under the rule against perpetuities.