Perpetuity in United States

Perpetuity Definition

Any limitation tending to take the subject of it out of commerce foi a longer period than a life or lives in being, and twenty-one years beyond, and, in case of a posthumous child, a few months more, allowing for the term of gestation. Rand. Perp. 48. Such a limitation of property as renders it unalienable beyond the period allowed by law. Gilb. Uses (Sugd. Ed.) 260, note. An interest subject to a condition precedent, which condition is not to be fulfilled within twenty-one years after some life in being at the creation of the interest. Gray, Perp. § 216. Mr. Justice Powell, in 12 Mod. 278, distinguished perpetuities into two sorts, absolute and qualified; meaning thereby, as it is apprehended, a distinction between a plain, direct, and palpable perpetuity, and the case where an estate is limited on a contingency, which might happen within a reasonable compass of time, but where the estate nevertheless, from the nature of the limitation, might be kept out of commerce longer than was thought agreeable to the policy of the common law. But this distinction would not now lead to a better understanding or explanation of the subject; for whether an estate be so limited that it cannot take effect until a period too much protracted, or whether on a contingency which may happen within a moderate compass of time, it equally falls within the line of perpetuity, and the limitation is therefore void; for it is not sufficient that an estate may vest within the time allowed, but the rule requires that it must. Rand. Perp. 49. See Cruise, Dig. tit. 32, c. 23; 1 Belt, Supp. Ves. 406; 2 Ves. Jr. 357; 3 Saund. 388; Comyn Dig. “Chancery” (4 G 1); 3 Chanc. Cas. 1; 2 Bouv. Inst, note 1890.

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Any limitation tending to take the subject of it out of commerce foi a longer period than a life or lives in being, and twenty-one years beyond, and, in case of a posthumous child, a few months more, allowing for the term of gestation. Rand. Perp. 48. Such a limitation of property as renders it unalienable beyond the period allowed by law. Gilb. Uses (Sugd. Ed.) 260, note. An interest subject to a condition precedent, which condition is not to be fulfilled within twenty-one years after some life in being at the creation of the interest. Gray, Perp. § 216. Mr. Justice Powell, in 12 Mod. 278, distinguished perpetuities into two sorts, absolute and qualified; meaning thereby, as it is apprehended, a distinction between a plain, direct, and palpable perpetuity, and the case where an estate is limited on a contingency, which might happen within a reasonable compass of time, but where the estate nevertheless, from the nature of the limitation, might be kept out of commerce longer than was thought agreeable to the policy of the common law. But this distinction would not now lead to a better understanding or explanation of the subject; for whether an estate be so limited that it cannot take effect until a period too much protracted, or whether on a contingency which may happen within a moderate compass of time, it equally falls within the line of perpetuity, and the limitation is therefore void; for it is not sufficient that an estate may vest within the time allowed, but the rule requires that it must. Rand. Perp. 49. See Cruise, Dig. tit. 32, c. 23; 1 Belt, Supp. Ves. 406; 2 Ves. Jr. 357; 3 Saund. 388; Comyn Dig. “Chancery” (4 G 1); 3 Chanc. Cas. 1; 2 Bouv. Inst, note 1890.

This definition of Perpetuity is based on The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary. This entry needs to be proofread.