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If the law is on your side, pound the law. If the facts are on your side, pound the facts. If neither the law nor the facts are on your side, pound the table.
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Legal Definitions - corpus
Definition of corpus
The term corpus refers to the main body or principal of something. In a legal context, particularly within trust and estate law, it most commonly refers to the core assets or property that make up a trust or fund. This is the capital that is typically managed by a trustee or administrator, distinct from any income, profits, or interest generated by those assets. The goal is often to preserve the corpus while distributing its earnings.
Here are some examples of how corpus applies:
A Trust for Children's Education: Imagine a parent establishes a trust fund containing $500,000 in investments, with instructions for the trustee to use the income generated to pay for their children's college tuition. The corpus of this trust is the initial $500,000 in investments. The trustee is responsible for managing this principal amount, ensuring it grows or is preserved, while the income it produces is used for the children's education.
A Charitable Endowment: A philanthropist donates a significant sum of money, say $10 million, to a university to create an endowment for a new research center. The university is instructed to invest this money and use only the annual investment earnings to fund the center's operations. The $10 million donated by the philanthropist forms the corpus of the endowment. This principal amount is intended to remain intact and invested indefinitely, providing a continuous stream of funding from its earnings for the research center.
An Estate Held in Trust: After someone passes away, their will directs that their entire estate—including their home, savings accounts, and stock portfolio—be placed into a trust managed by a bank for five years before being distributed to their heirs. The deceased person's home, savings, and stock portfolio, as they are gathered and placed into the trust, collectively constitute the corpus of the estate. The bank, as trustee, is responsible for managing and preserving these assets during the five-year period before they are distributed to the beneficiaries.
Simple Definition
Corpus is a Latin term meaning "body." In a legal context, it can refer to a person's physical body, as in *habeas corpus*. More commonly in trust law, corpus denotes the principal property or assets that a trustee is responsible for managing.