Coleman Estate

Opinion by

Mr. Justice Roberts,

The single, narrow issue presented by this appeal 1 is whether a settlor may impose upon our courts the task of monitoring his wish that no person serve as an individual trustee of an irrevocable inter vivos charitable trust, if that person is married to a non-Protestant. We conclude that settlor’s partiality for the religious persuasion of the trustees’s spouses is irrelevant both to the competency of a trustee and to the proper administration of the trust, and is therefore unenforceable.

Horace C. Coleman (settlor) on December 26, 1935, created the Coleman…