Constitutional Law – Due Process – Retroactive Application of Uniform Principal and Income Act

The trustee of a trust created prior to the 1957 enactment of the Uniform Principal and Income Act petitioned for instructions as to whether a stock dividend received by it subsequent to the passage of the act should be allocated to principal or income. The Uniform Act provides a rule for the treatment of stock dividends contrary to the judicial rule previously adopted in Wisconsin, and is expressly made applicable to trusts existing on its date of enactment. The county court, finding the act could not be constitutionally applied to trusts created prior to its enactment, ordered the allocation of the shares to income. On appeal, held, reversed. The application of the Uniform Principal and Income Act to stock dividends received subsequent to the passage of the act by a trust created prior to the act does not violate Fourteenth Amendment due process. In re Allis Will, (Wis. 1959) 94 N.W. (2d) 226.