A trustee’s discretion is generally constrained by statute, by the terms of the trust, and by the trustee’s fiduciary duty to act in the beneficiaries’ interests. When a trustee, acting within the scope of that discretion, distributes trust property into a new trust, that distribution is called “decanting.” In Morse v. Kraft, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) considered whether the broad discretion afforded to a trustee under the terms of an irrevocable trust included the power to decant. Holding that it did, the SJC nevertheless declined to adopt the Boston Bar Association’s (BBA’s) preferred position that such power is inherent in all trustees of irrevocable trusts
