Also known as: in-being · lives in being
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A person alive at the creation of a future interest or at the commencement of the measuring period under the rule against perpetuities. The concept fixes the starting point for calculating the permissible duration of contingent interests and ensures that measuring lives are identifiable at the relevant moment.
Imani Idowu paid a contractor to clear land in anticipation of a purchase contract with Ideal Solutions. When Ideal Solutions backed out, Imani sought recovery of those expenses. The court treated her as a party in being at the time of reliance and therefore eligible to assert the reimbursement claim.
Ivy Ibarra granted Inertia Dynamics an option to purchase acreage exercisable within twenty-one years after the death of the last shareholder alive on the deed date. The court upheld the period because every shareholder qualified as a life in being at commencement, satisfying the rule against perpetuities requirement.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
After Ian Iverson's death his widow sought social security benefits for a child conceived through preserved gametes. The court held that the child was not in being at the father's death and therefore could not take under the intestacy statute as a surviving descendant.
Ike Ingram's will left property to a trust that might vest more than twenty-one years after lives in being. Ira Irving sued the drafting attorney for negligence. The court found no liability because the remote possibility of invalidity was too unlikely for an attorney of ordinary skill to have anticipated.
Ines Ibarra's family sought to discontinue artificial nutrition for her after an accident. The court recognized that only a competent person in being at the time of the decision possesses the protected liberty interest in refusing unwanted medical treatment.
Interlink Communications employees challenged a state ban on physician-assisted suicide. The court held that the asserted right was not deeply rooted for persons in being and therefore not a protected liberty interest under the Due Process Clause.
Yes. Under the rule against perpetuities a child en ventre sa mere at the time of the conveyance counts as a life in being, provided the child is later born alive.
The requirement ensures that the duration of the interest can be determined from the outset by reference to identifiable human lives rather than uncertain future events.
If the lives are so numerous or situated that evidence of their deaths cannot reasonably be obtained, the period fails and the interest is void under the rule against perpetuities.
No. Courts have held that unimplanted embryos are not persons in being capable of taking as heirs or issue at the relevant time.
…This Court reversed the judgment of the state Supreme Court upon the ground that petitioners had been denied due process of law in being held estopped to challenge the validity of the agreement on the theory, accepted by the state court, that the earlier litigation, in which petitioners did not participate, was in the nature…