Four triggers, and only one of them is impossibility
If a particular charitable purpose becomes unlawful, impracticable, impossible to achieve, or wasteful, the court may apply the doctrine of cy pres to modify or terminate the trust by directing that the trust property be applied or distributed, in whole or in part, in a manner consistent with the settlor’s charitable purposes.
Section 736.0413(1), Florida Statutes.
The four triggers are alternatives and they are not equally demanding. Impossible to achieve is the one everyone reaches for and the hardest to prove. Impracticable and wasteful ask a much softer question, and wasteful in particular invites a comparison between what the gift costs to administer and what it accomplishes. A named scholarship at an institution that no longer offers the course, a fund for a building that was demolished, a grant program whose administration consumes most of the income. These are ordinary situations, and none of them is impossible.
Note also what the court may do with the property. It may apply or distribute it in whole or in part, and the standard is consistency with the settlor’s charitable purposes, plural, rather than with the specific mechanism the settlor chose. The statute is written to let a court keep what the settlor was trying to achieve while discarding how they said to achieve it.
Who may ask
A proceeding to modify or terminate a trust under this section may be commenced by a settlor, a trustee, or any qualified beneficiary.
Section 736.0413(2), Florida Statutes.
The inclusion of the settlor is worth pausing on. Across most of Part IV the settlor is either dead or absent from the standing provisions, because those sections deal with trusts that have become irrevocable. Here a living settlor who can see that their own charitable plan is failing may go to court and ask to have it redirected.
No Florida court has construed this section
We searched the Florida state courts, the Florida federal district and bankruptcy courts, and the Eleventh Circuit, requesting every precedential status rather than accepting the default view. One Florida decision cites section 736.0413. It is a decision of the Florida Supreme Court, and it is not a charitable trust case.
In an opinion considering amendments to Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.220, the class action rule, the Court declined to propose a mandatory class action cy pres provision. Attached to the phrase cy pres in that discussion is a footnote explaining where the term comes from.
Cy pres is an equitable doctrine originally used in trusts and estate law to effectuate a charitable intent that could not be fulfilled. Id. Under the doctrine, the court reforms the written instrument with a gift to charity that serves a purpose as close to the donor’s original charitable purpose as possible. Id.; Cy Pres, Black’s Law Dictionary (10th ed. 2014). The Florida Legislature has codified the cy pres doctrine, as that doctrine applies in the trust law context, in section 736.0413, Florida Statutes (2018), of the Florida Trust Code.
In re Amendments to Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.220, 271 So. 3d 936 (Fla. 2019), footnote 4.
Two things are true about that passage and they should not be run together. It is an accurate statement by Florida’s highest court about what section 736.0413 is and what doctrine it codifies. And it decides nothing whatever about charitable trusts, because the case is about class actions and the footnote exists to explain a borrowed term. It is worth knowing and it is not authority on how the section operates.
So the questions a trustee or a charity would actually bring to this statute are unanswered in Florida appellate law. How near is near enough. Whether a court weighs the settlor’s general charitable intent against the specific named purpose, and what evidence establishes the former. Whether wasteful is measured against the trust’s size, its income, or the value of what the gift achieves. What happens when a settlor expressly directed that the gift fail rather than be redirected. On each of these, a Florida court would be writing on a clean sheet.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is cy pres in Florida trust law?
It is the doctrine that saves a charitable gift whose stated purpose can no longer be carried out, by redirecting the property to a purpose as close as possible to what the settlor wanted. Florida codifies it at section 736.0413. The Florida Supreme Court has described it as an equitable doctrine originally used in trusts and estate law to effectuate a charitable intent that could not be fulfilled.
When can a Florida court apply cy pres?
On four triggers, stated in the disjunctive. A court may act if a particular charitable purpose becomes unlawful, impracticable, impossible to achieve, or wasteful. Any one of the four is enough. Impracticable and wasteful are considerably easier to establish than impossible, and a petition framed only around impossibility gives away two of the four routes.
Who can bring a cy pres proceeding?
A settlor, a trustee, or any qualified beneficiary, under subsection (2). Note that this includes the settlor, who in most other modification provisions in Part IV has either died or is not mentioned.
Has any Florida court construed section 736.0413?
Not on our review. One Florida decision cites the section, and it is the Florida Supreme Court, in a footnote to an opinion about the class action rule, noting that the Legislature codified trust law cy pres at this section. That is an accurate statement about the section and it is not a construction of it. Nothing in that opinion decides anything about charitable trusts.
Is the cy pres in class action settlements the same doctrine?
No, and conflating them is a live risk when researching this section. Courts and commentators use cy pres to describe the distribution of unclaimed class action settlement funds, which is a different practice that borrowed the name. The Florida Supreme Court drew exactly that distinction, tracing the term to its trust law origin while considering whether to adopt a class action rule.
Common Situations
The named charity no longer exists. A classic cy pres situation. The question is what the settlor was trying to achieve, not merely which organization was named.
The purpose is legal but pointless now. Impracticable and wasteful are separate triggers from impossible and are considerably easier to establish.
Administration costs are eating the gift. Wasteful is written into the statute as a trigger in its own right.
The settlor is alive and can see the problem. Subsection (2) gives the settlor standing to commence the proceeding, which several neighbouring sections do not.
Sources of Law
- Section 736.0413, Florida Statutes (2025). Enacted by s. 4, ch. 2006-217, and never amended since.
- In re Amendments to Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.220, 271 So. 3d 936 (Fla. 2019). Cited for its footnote acknowledging what this section codifies, and not as authority on the section.
- Reading note: the electronic copy of that opinion available to us is incomplete. The body carries six footnote markers and only footnotes 4, 5 and 6 have text rendered. Footnote 4 is the one quoted here and is present in full. We make no claim about the missing footnotes.
- Our review searched Florida state courts, the Florida federal district courts, the Florida bankruptcy courts and the Eleventh Circuit on August 13, 2026, requesting every precedential status rather than the default view. We report a nil result as our own review and not as a certainty. Searching by section number is an imperfect tool in two known ways. It misses decisions that discuss a statute without naming it, and we have confirmed at least one Florida decision that names a section yet does not appear in a search for that number.
- Decisions discussed here are published opinions in other parties’ cases. They are not matters handled by this firm and they predict nothing about any reader’s case. No commercial citator pass has been run on this research.
Updated on August 13, 2026. Reviewed by Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., Fla. Bar No. 99502. Attorney Kevin Klagge represents families, businesses, and international clients in estate and tax planning, business structuring, and international law, with a focus on Florida legal tools. He litigates estate and business issues in court. General information about Florida law and published court decisions, not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created. Reading this page does not make us your lawyers. Please do not send confidential details until we have connected.
