United States National Bank v. Duling

It bears repeating that hard cases make bad law.

The only thing that makes this case a hard one is the negligence of the trustee over a 14-year period, not the language of the trust instrument, which is clear and unambiguous. If the majority opinion stands, there will result an untold amount of mischief with respect to other trust or testamentary instruments which use the same, not uncommon phrase: "In the event of the remarriage of my wife * * Undoubtedly, there will be some surprises to the parties involved when a court decides (as did the trial court here) that the phrase does not mean the…