- 23 -
Iron, Inc., to prevent merger. The naming of default
beneficiaries here, under the Trust B provisions, should yield an
identical result.
The estate also makes the further contention that, even
apart from the merger doctrine, “Leona’s unlimited right of
withdrawal over all of Trust A (and her rights to alter, amend or
revoke Trust A) and her failure to withdraw the property made her
effectively the settlor of all property of Trust A and eliminated
the distinction of his former property or hers.”2 A fortiori,
the estate alleges that as sole settlor of Trust A, decedent was
unable to grant a power of appointment to herself over the
property therein.
Yet, the estate has cited no California authority indicating
that courts of that State would disregard the actual parties and
the express drafting of the instrument at issue. Additionally,
as respondent points out, the definitions with respect to powers
of appointment contained in Cal. Prob. Code section 610 (West
2002) appear to contemplate that an individual’s retained power
to direct disposition of his or her property would be
characterized as a power of appointment. See Cal. Prob. Code
sec. 610(e) (“‘Donor’ means the person who creates or reserves a
power of appointment.”); Cal. Prob. Code sec. 610(d) (“‘Donee’
2 See supra note 1.
Page: Previous 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 NextLast modified: May 25, 2011