Equity and Trust Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

Equity and Trust - Essay Example The settlor also uses the word â€Å"confidence† in that he was confident that Pamela will carry out his express wishes with advice from his solicitor. However, taken together the words expressing the trust may be interpreted as precatory as it is not altogether clear what the settlor’s intention are in terms of securing the kid’s future.5 However, since the settlor used the word trust in referring to the specific terms of the gift, there is no doubt that he intended to create a trust for the benefit of the children and intended that his wife determine how best to secure his children’s future as their trustee. Thus the certainty of intention has been satisfied in respect of the gift to Pamela. The requirement of certainty of subject and object will give effect to the settlor’s intention if sufficiently identifiable.6 Thus the certainty of subject matter is satisfied if the property to be transferred to the trust is identifiable and administratively possible.7 The settlor transferred 500,000 pounds to his wife Pamela with the specific instructions that the funds were to be held by her upon trust for their children. Thus there is no uncertainty relative to the subject matter of the trust and as such it is administratively possible. Therefore certainty of subject matter is sufficiently made out to constitute a valid declaration of trust. Certainty of objects is satisfied if the words used to create the trust identifies beneficiaries or a class of beneficiaries with sufficient clarity that the trustees or the courts can identify the beneficiaries.8 The gift to Pamela refers to their children and thus there can be no doubt that all children shared by Pamela and her husband are the beneficiaries of the trust and can be easily identified. It therefore follows that each of the three certainties are satisfied in the gift to Pamela and a valid, enforceable trust was created. b. The Gift for the Settlor’s Best Friends and their Re latives The gift of 100,000 pounds for the settlor’s best friends and their relatives must meet the certainty of objects requirement if it is to be a valid, enforceable trust. Essentially, when the settlor refers to a class of beneficiaries and does not specifically identify the members of the class, the courts require that there must be a conceptual certainty as to who makes up the members of the class of beneficiaries.9 The class of beneficiaries must be of sufficient certainty so that the trust itself is administratively possible. The trustees must be in a position to identify those who make up the members of the group forming the beneficiaries of the trust so that at some later time, otherwise, trustees may find themselves confronting a number of claims for breach of trust. For instance a trust for the residents of a specific community would be administratively impossible since the trustees would have an onerous task of having to identify those who are residents and wheth er or not present or future residents fall

The Portray of African-American women in 1960s Research Paper

The Portray of African-American women in 1960s - Research Paper Example John F. Kennedy was elected president in 1961 and he became a president who was very much dedicated to the protection and establishment of civil rights for all Americans (Zeitz, 2006). Two years after he was elected, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, and in the process, inspired many African Americans and civil rights groups to firmly seek the equal protection of their rights, regardless of their skin color (Zeitz, 2006). When President Lyndon Johnson took over as president after Kennedy’s assassination, he also firmly pressed support for civil rights laws, and in 1964, the Civil Rights Act was signed by Johnson. This law made racial segregation in America legally actionable (Marwick, 1998). A year after the Civil Rights Act was signed, the National Voting Rights Act was also passed into law, and this law also ensured that discrimination in voting practices would become legally actionable (Marwick, 1998). Towards the end of the 1960s, Presi dent Richard Nixon would soon take over and the Vietnam War would also take center stage in American issues and politics. Nevertheless, the legal foundations for civil rights were laid out during the 1960s (Marwick, 1998). For African-Americans, it marked a time when they were finally able to gain full equal and legal status as their white counterparts. For African-American women in the 1960s, it also marked a period of transition. The Emancipation Proclamation during the 1860s was meant to free African-Americans from slavery, however, this did not necessarily grant the African-Americans equal rights under the law (Stack, 1974). They were still very much discriminated against by general society, and not allowed the same rights and privileges as the whites. The Jim Crow Laws of 1876 also passed segregation laws for the black communities, separating them from the white communities (Stack, 1974). These laws also indicated where the African-Americans were supposed to live. These practic es would however soon gain the ire of the African-Americans as gradually many of them, along with civil rights activists sought equal rights for all Americans regardless of race (Quintard, 2003). The decision of the Supreme Court in 1954 on the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas also started the ball rolling for the desegregation in schools. However, major strides towards racial desegregation on a wider scale were still not seen (Quintard, 2003). Anthropologist Carol Stack in her book ‘All Our Kin’ focused on what she refers to as Jackson Harbor in order to examine the discrimination practices against the African Americans (Stack, 1974). Stack (1974) discusses that in Jackson Harbor, in Mississippi, poverty and racial discrimination played a huge part in romantic inclinations and relations. For one, women usually viewed men in a stereotypical fashion – behaving bad, drinking, being violent, being involved in crimes, and the like (Stack, 1974). Women al so saw themselves as the more reliable individuals, and the fact that they had access to welfare made them more formidable individuals than their male counterparts. Stack (1974) discusses how within the community, the African-American women possessed equal rights in relation to African American men. However as far as the bigger world is concerned, the white-dominated American society through its racist and sexist practices had great control over the lives of African American women. In effect, these women had the power to make the decisions for their families and themselves,