Hampton v. O'Rear (Montgomery County, KY)

In 1944, Montgomery County, KY, resident L. E. Griggs left a charitable trust for the building of a hospital for African Americans as either an adjoined facility to the Mary Chiles Hospital or on the grounds of the hospital. When Mary Chiles Hospital refused to act as a trustee for the structure, it seemed the trust would be discontinued.

A lawsuit was filed asking that the trust be continued with new trustees and that the hospital be built at some other location. The court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, so the defendants appealed.

The Kentucky Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the defendants with Judge Simms dissenting. "...[I]t is clear that a mere substantial compliance with the conditions imposed would not serve the purposes for which the trust was created. That being true, the cy pres doctrine may not be applied; and, because the devisee duly disclaimed its rights under the conditions imposed, we have no alternative but to declare the purposes of the trust to have failed, and that neither the corpus of the estate nor the income therefrom may be used to establish a hospital for persons of Negro blood on any other property in the hospitalization area of Mt. Sterling."

For more see Hampton et al. v. O'Rear et al. 309 Ky. 1; 215 S.W.2d 539; 1948 Ky.; and Cases on the Law of Trusts, by G. G. Bogert and D. H. Oaks. [Quotation from the opinion of Judge Van Sant.]