In trust law, the doctrine of *cy pres* (Law French for "as near as possible") is invoked when a charitable trust's original purpose becomes impossible, impracticable, or illegal to execute. Historically, if a trust failed, the assets would revert to the donor's heirs via a resulting trust. However, courts developed *cy pres* to preserve charitable gifts by redirecting the funds to a purpose that closely approximates the donor's original intent. For a court to apply *cy pres*, it must determine that the donor had a "general charitable intent" rather than an intent exclusively tied to the specific, now-failed mechanism.
A classic application occurred when a 19th-century testator left a fund to combat diseases caused by "miasma" (bad air). When the miasma theory of disease was debunked and replaced by germ theory, fulfilling the exact terms of the trust became scientifically impossible. Rather than returning the endowment to the testator's distant relatives, the court applied *cy pres*. It reasoned that the donor's overarching goal was the improvement of public health through disease prevention. Consequently, the court authorized the redirection of the funds to a modern epidemiological research institute. Crucially, the court did not simply give the money to any worthy charity, such as an orphanage or an art museum, but strictly bound the new application to the closest modern equivalent of the original specific intent: fighting infectious diseases. Thus, *cy pres* functions as a conservative legal mechanism; it adapts to changing realities not by rewriting the donor's will to maximize social utility, but by interpreting the donor's original specific intent through the lens of modern circumstances.
Which of the following situations is most analogous to the application of the *cy pres* doctrine as described in the passage?
- A scholarship fund established in 1910 to train steam engine mechanics can no longer find eligible students, so the trustees redirect the funds to train technicians in modern electric vehicle maintenance.Answer
- BA grant intended to fund research into a specific extinct bird species is redirected to a public art museum, because university administrators determine the museum will attract more visitors and better serve the public good.
- CAn executor discovers that a trust designated for a local hospital is legally invalid, and therefore rewrites the donor's will to distribute the assets to various environmental groups to maximize broader social utility.
- DA 19th-century endowment established to combat infectious diseases is returned to the donor's distant relatives via a resulting trust, because modern epidemiological research proved the donor's scientific beliefs regarding treatment were incorrect.
- EA trust established to maintain horse-drawn carriages becomes obsolete, prompting the court to redirect the funds to a modern transit authority with a mandate that the authority must permanently prevent any future changes to the city's transportation infrastructure.