Trust Parties’ Uniquely Easy Access to Rescission: Analysis, Critique And Reform

82 Modern Law Review 777-799, 2019

40 Pages Posted: 27 Nov 2019

See all articles by Adam S. Hofri-Winogradow

Adam S. Hofri-Winogradow

Peter A. Allard School of Law, the University of British Columbia

Gad Weiss

Columbia Law School

Date Written: February 1, 2019

Abstract

This article shows that parties to trusts currently enjoy easier access to judicial avoidance of voluntary dispositions resulting from mistakes and inadequate decision-making than other persons. The principal doctrinal basis for this advantage has shifted from the rule in Re Hastings-Bass to rescission in equity. We show this advantage to be normatively unjustified, and recommend a uniform legal framework to govern the avoidance of voluntary dispositions resulting from mistakes or inadequate decision-making, whether or not a trust was involved. Under this framework, dispositions resulting from laypersons’ mistakes and inadequate decision-making should be avoided, subject to appropriate defences, whenever that causative nexus is present, while dispositions resulting from professionals’ mistakes and inadequate decision-making should only be avoided where the mistake or deliberative flaw was so serious as to render the transferee’s retention of property transferred unjust.

Keywords: Trust, Trustee, Mistake, Settlor, Beneficiary, Rescission, Equity, Re Hastings Bass, Pitt v Holt

JEL Classification: K19, K36, K10

Suggested Citation

Hofri-Winogradow, Adam S. and Weiss, Gad, Trust Parties’ Uniquely Easy Access to Rescission: Analysis, Critique And Reform (February 1, 2019). 82 Modern Law Review 777-799, 2019, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3487041 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3487041

Adam S. Hofri-Winogradow (Contact Author)

Peter A. Allard School of Law, the University of British Columbia ( email )

1822 East Mall
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1
Canada

HOME PAGE: http://allard.ubc.ca/about-us/our-people/adam-s-hofri-winogradow

Gad Weiss

Columbia Law School ( email )

United States

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