KEY PROBLEMS IN THE APPORTIONMENT OF INCREASE BETWEEN SUCCESSIVE INTERESTS IN PERSONALTY

It has been said with some amount of truth that "Perhaps no other question in the law of future interests has called forth such a voluminous literature as the question of the allocation of dividends and the other accruing benefits as between the life tenant and the remainderman of shares of corporate stock." The present writer's purpose in adding to the material on the subject is to show the relation to the case law of the rules set forth in the Restatement of Trusts and the Uniform Principal and Income Act. While difficult problems of apportionment arise in regard to realty, for instance in the distribution of the proceeds of sales, condemnation, insurance, and "wasting assets" (such as timber, minerals, oil and gas), the problems in regard to personalty are perhaps even more confusing. Today by far the most common forms of personalty involved are corporate stocks and bonds, both of which readily lend themselves to the creation of successive interests. Since the rules applicable to corporate stock developed from those governing the apportionment of the increase of animals and slaves and of receipts from business, these earlier forms of personalty are considered first.

No attempt is made to discuss problems which are not peculiar to personalty, but which apply the same principles that govern in the case of land, such as the division of rents, sales, and proceeds from "wasting assets" (copyrights, royalties and patent rights), and problems of unproductive estates and the allocation of expenses.