Voluntary trust

An obligation arising out of a personal confidence reposed in, and voluntarily accepted by, one for the benefit of another, as distinguished from an "involuntary" trust, which is created by operation of law.

Civ. Code Cal. §§ 2216, 2217.

According to another use of the term, "voluntary" trusts are such as are made in favor of a volunteer, that is, a person who gives nothing in exchange for the trust, but receives it as a pure gift; and in this use the term is distinguished from "trusts for value," the latter being such as are in favor of purchasers, mortgagees, etc.

2.

In constitutional and statutory law. An association or organization of persons or corporations having the intention and power, or the tendency, to create a monopoly, control production, interfere with the free course of trade or transportation, or to fix and regulate the supply and the price of commodities. In the history of economic development, the "trust" was originally a device by which several corporations engaged in the same general line of business might combine for their mutual advantage, in the direction of eliminating destructive competition, controlling the output of their commodity, and regulating and maintaining its price, but at the same time preserving their separate individual existence, and without any consolidation or merger. This device was the erection of a central committee or board, composed, perhaps, of the pres-dents or general managers of the different corporations, and the transfer to them of a majority of the stock in cach of the corporations, to be held "in trust" for the several stockholders se assigning their holdings. These stockholders received in return "trust certificates" showing that they were entitled to receive the dividends on their assigned stock, though the voting power of it had passed to the trustees. This last feature enabled the trustees or cemmittee to elect all the directors of all the corporations, and through them the officers, and thereby to exercise an absolutely controlling influence over the policy and operations of each constituent company, to the ends and with the purposes above mentioned. Though the "trust," in this sense, is now seldom lf ever resorted to as a form of corporate organization, having given place to the "holding corporation" and other devices, the word has become current in statute laws as well as popular speech, to designate almost any form of combination of a monopolistic character or tendency See Black, Const. Law (3d Ed.) p.

428; Northern Securities Co. v. U. S., 193 U. S. 107, 24 Sup. Ct. 436, 48 In Ed. 679; MacGinniss v. Mining Co., 29 Mont. 428, 75 Pac. 89; State v. Continental Tobacco Co., 177 Mo. 1, 75 S. W. 737; Queen Ins. Co. v. State, 86 Tex. 250, 24 S. W. 397, 22 L. R. A. 483 ; State v. Insurance Ch, 152 Mo. 1, 52 S. W. 595, 45 In -R. A. 363; Gen. St Kan. 1901, § 7864; Code Miss. 1892, § 4437; Cob-bey's Ann. St. Neb. 1903, § 11500; Bates' Ann. St. Ohio, 1904, § 4427; Co.de Tex. 1895, art. 976.