A Rejoinder by Professor Waggoner

Abstract

Since the patience of the reader and the space in this issue of the Law Review are nearing their limits, I wish to publish only two points in response to what Professor Dukeminier has written.. These points further support my position that Dukeminier's proposed statute would lead almost anyone to conclude that A, not X, is the causal relationship measuring life in Example I of my article.' By implication, these points, along with the others made in my article, corroborate my overall thesis: Professor Dukeminier's proposed one-sentence statute2 cannot be counted a responsible way of identifying the measuring lives for waitand-see, if indeed measuring lives are to be used at all;3 the exact meaning of persons can affect the vesting of the is disputable and the various subsidiary rules Dukeminier announces need rethinking, clarifying, and codifying. First. The first point relates to my conclusion that the natural meaning of the proposed statutory language-persons can affect the vesting of the interest-is that it refers to persons who can produce a change in some aspect of the vesting of the interest that was not already settled at the date of the gift.4 This interpretation, which I now believe Professor Dukeminier agrees would exclude X as a causally-related measuring life,5 is not only a defensible interpretation of the language of the proposed statute.6 It is consistent with the purported linkage (attributed to the formula by Dukeminier) to the search for a validating life at common law. Since the common law Rule Against Perpetuities is not concerned about aspects of vesting that are satisfied at the date of the gift, a common law validating life must always have a causal relationship to some aspect of the vesting of the interest that was unsatisfied at the date of the gift.7