The Great Stork Derby

When teaching the cases and statutes addressing how a court determines whether a trust purpose is legal, I find that students enjoy discussing the following provision in a lawyer's will:

All the rest and residue of my property wheresoever situate I give, devise and bequeath unto my Executors and Trustees named below in Trust to convert into money as they deem advisable and invest all the money until the expiration of nine years from my death and then call in and convert it all into money and at the expiration of ten years from my death to give it and its accumulations to the Mother who has since my death given birth in Toronto to the greatest number of children as shown by the Registrations under the Vital Statistics Act. If one of more mothers have equal highest number of registrations under the said Act to divide the said moneys and accumulations equally between them.

The court held that the provision was valid.  The trustee then turned over $125,000 to each of the four women who had each given birth to nine children in the ten year period.

For additional information, read the article on scopes.com.