Governors of Erasmus Smith Schools v Attorney General (Saorstát Éireann)

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 01 January 1932
• Date: 01 January 1932
• Court: High Court (Irish Free State)

[H. C., I.F.S.],

Governors of Erasmus Smith Schools

and

Attorney-General (Saorstát Eireann)

Erasmus Smith endowment - Paramount intention - Implementing provision unworkable owing to changes of time and circumstance - Cy-près.

In a charitable endowment, if a particular provision, expressed to be obligatory, has been introduced merely for the purpose of implementing a clearly expressed charitable intention, and if such implementing provision has become unworkable owing to having been expressed with reference to the circumstances of the time, the Court will save the gift for charity by adopting an interpretation that moves with the times, and will strike out or adapt the implementing provision so as to effect the general charitable intention under altered times and circumstances without considering whether the donor himself would have moved with the times. There is no fixed rule or principle that wherever, in a charitable endowment, there is a provision for religious...