TRUSTS - ACCUMULATION OF INCOME

Testator left his estate in trust until twenty-one years after the death of two nieces, the trust income to be used first to pay several annuities and the remainder "to be re-invested by the trustee for the increase and benefit of this trust fund." At the expiration of twenty-one years after the death of both nieces the trust was to terminate and the estate to be distributed. The lower court held that, while the trust did not violate the rule against perpetuities nor the District of Columbia statute as to the suspension of the power of alienation, the trust income could not be accumulated for so long a period. Held, reversed. Under common law of the United States and the District of Columbia a provision for the accumulation of income of a trust is permitted for a period of twenty-one years after lives in being; any change in this rule is for the legislature, not the courts.

Gertman v. Burdick, (App. D.C. 1941) 123 F. (2d) 924.