“Health” in HEMS Means Complete Well-Being, by Claudia E. Tordini and Richard S. Franklin, 50 ACTEC 339 (2025).
There is little clarity in what “health” means in the typical trust distribution standard of “health, education, maintenance, and support.” Few cases have litigated the definition of what distributions qualify for health. The authors here argue that the Uniform Trust Code should adopt the World Health Organization’s definition of “health” to mean “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, as defined, interpreted and modified by the World Health Organization from time to time.”
I am not convinced the adoption of such definition would accomplish the clarity the authors envision. Perhaps the reason there are few litigated cases on the definition of “health” is the fact that it is vague, and providing a more detailed definition, assuming the adopted definition is in fact more detailed, would lead to more litigation. As Timothy Endicott argued in his book Vagueness in Law, there may sometimes be value in vagueness.