The Low Road to Cy Pres Reform: Principled Practice to Remove Dead Hand Control of Charitable Assets

Abstract

This paper deals with practical, if unorthodox, means for removing dead hand control of charitable assets: unilateral trustee disregard of dead hand restrictions, collaboration with state attorneys general to remove such restrictions without recourse to judicial action, purchase of control from private parties, and invocation of the power of eminent domain. Although these measures fall far short the general elimination of dead hand control that I have advocated elsewhere, their cumulative effect should be to erode such control, even as they free charitable assets in particular cases.