The earlier trust

Published accounts of Short Creek in the mid-1930s describe a communal effort organized under John Y. Barlow and the priesthood council, also called the Council of Friends. A Dialogue article, drawing on the journal of Joseph Lyman Jessop, says that on 7 July 1935 Barlow presented “the articles and laws of the United Trust” that had been prepared by the council, and that those present voted to give their property.1 The same journal, as quoted there, records opposition to some clauses of that document: Carl Jentzch is described as saying the clauses “guaranteed nothing,” and Jessop himself as thinking they appeared “harsh and unfair” and “were not meet for men.” Barlow, according to that journal, said he had received the idea “in answer to my prayers.”2

A 1933 or 1935 trust instrument itself has not been located in the catalogs searched for this page. In Jeffs v. Stubbs, the Utah Supreme Court, reciting the trial court’s findings, wrote that the leadership of “The Work” later “formed a trust to hold title to the land. This trust failed, and, for the most part, the land was deeded back to those who contributed it.” The opinion does not itself give a reason for that failure.3

The 1942 Declaration of Trust

On 9 November 1942, in Salt Lake County, Utah, five men signed a “Declaration of Trust” creating an association “known as the UNITED EFFORT PLAN.” The signers, who are designated the first trustees, were John Y. Barlow, president; LeRoy S. Johnson, vice-president; Joseph W. Musser, secretary and treasurer; J. Marion Hammon; and Rulon T. Jeffs. Charles F. Zitting, a notary public in Salt Lake City, acknowledged their signatures the same day.4

The declaration states that the subscribers and such other members as might later join “are associated together merely and solely for purpose of being cesti que trustents of the trust hereby created, thus being entitled to the equitable and beneficial interests of all profits and property, both personal, real and mixed, of the trust estate hereby created, in accordance with their respective just wants and needs as determined from time to time by the Board of Trustees and as the trust estate may be able to respond thereto.” Article VIII states: “The purpose and object of the trust shall first be charitable and philanthropic, its operations to be governed in a true spirit of brotherhood,” and that the trust might engage in legitimate business so long as those endeavors did not conflict with the Constitution of the United States or “the constitutional laws of the land where such operations may be carried on.”5

Article XII provides that membership “is established for the signers of this instrument and who form the first Board of Trustees, by the conveyance to the trust estate” of described land in Mohave County, Arizona, totaling, in the instrument’s words, “619 acres more or less,” plus a separate five-acre parcel. “Evidence of membership shall be shown in the books of the association.” Further membership “shall be established and added to by the consecration of such property, real, personal or mixed, to the trust.” A member expelled or excluded “shall have no further claim upon the trust estate.” Membership, the instrument says, did not entitle a member to a part of the trust property, to partition, or to an accounting.6

The declaration does not itself list later members who consecrated land, or labor, after the original conveyance. In Jeffs v. Stubbs, the court, again reciting trial findings, wrote that after the United Effort Plan was formed, “adherents deeded most of the land that had been held by the first trust to the UEP,” and that “over the years, the UEP acquired more land as adherents obtained and deeded it to the trust.” The same findings describe members building homes on assigned lots, being told they could not sell or mortgage the land, and being told they could live there “forever” or “as long as you wanted.”7

A recorded copy of the 1942 declaration in Mohave County, Arizona, Book 31 of Miscellaneous, pages 597–600, bears a file stamp stating that it was filed and recorded at the request of J. W. Musser, as secretary, on 8 August 1944, instrument number 25423, Mary E. Carson, county recorder.8

On 6 April 1946 the board, according to a sworn certificate by Rulon T. Jeffs as assistant secretary, unanimously adopted amendments to Articles III and XII, among other provisions. The 10 April 1946 certificate recites a change stating, “The trust is designated a non-profit organization.” The amendments were recorded in Mohave County on 2 May 1946, in Book 33 of Miscellaneous, pages 150–151.9

Jeffs v. Stubbs and the 1998 restatement

In the 1990s, twenty-one people who had built improvements on land in Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona, that was owned by the United Effort Plan sought to establish rights in the lots they occupied. After a federal court in 1993 dismissed federal claims for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, the dispute proceeded in Utah’s Fifth District Court in Washington County, before Judge J. Phillip Eves. The trustees of the United Effort Plan — including Rulon T. Jeffs and Fred M. Jessop — were the named plaintiffs in the appeal. The trial court, on an unjust-enrichment theory, held that the claimants were entitled to occupy the land during their lifetimes or to receive compensation for their improvements, and it concluded that the UEP was a charitable trust, not a private one.10

The Utah Supreme Court decided the case as Jeffs v. Stubbs, 970 P.2d 1234 (Utah 1998), No. 960454, filed 1 September 1998 (rehearing denied 18 November 1998). The court rejected the trust’s challenges to the unjust-enrichment ruling and affirmed that part of the trial court’s judgment. On the claimants’ cross-appeal, it reversed the trial court’s conclusion that the 1942 trust was charitable. After quoting the declaration’s language on membership and beneficial interests, the court wrote: “Because that trust names specific beneficiaries and because nothing else in the trust overcomes the general rule that naming specific beneficiaries render a trust private, we conclude the UEP trust is private.” It also reversed the trial court’s interpretation of Utah’s Occupying Claimants Act and remanded for further proceedings consistent with the opinion.11

On 3 November 1998, shortly after that decision, the trustees executed an “Amended and Restated Declaration of Trust of the United Effort Plan Trust.” The instrument states that the trust “is a religious and charitable trust,” that it was created by the declaration dated 9 November 1942 and amended 10 April 1946, and that the restatement “supersedes all previous documents.” It names Rulon T. Jeffs as “the sole remaining original Trustee and subscriber” and as President of the Board, and it recites that he, Fred M. Jessop, LeRoy S. Jeffs, Warren S. Jeffs, Truman I. Barlow, Winston K. Blackmore, and James K. Zitting executed the restatement, with Rulon T. Jeffs also signing as President and Corporation Sole of the Corporation of the President of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The restatement was recorded in Mohave County on 16 November 1998, Book 3194, pages 183–189, fee number 98069328.12

The 1998 instrument describes the original Mohave County acreage as “consecrated to the Trust,” and it states that “substantial additional real estate has been added as consecrations,” including property conveyed in the name of the Plan or of trustees such as Fred M. Jessop. It provides that the Board of Trustees “shall administer the Trust consistent with its religious purpose to provide for Church members according to their wants and their needs, insofar as their wants are just.” Occupancy, it says, “is granted, and may be revoked,” by the Board; the Board “shall have no obligation whatsoever to return all or any part of consecrated property back to a consecrator or to his or her descendants.” It also provides that the trust was intended to be a charitable trust of perpetual duration, but that “in the event of termination of this Trust, whether by the Board of Trustees or by reason of law, the assets of the Trust Estate at that time shall become the property of the Corporation of the President of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, corporation sole.” Later Utah Supreme Court opinions treat this 1998 restatement as having modified the trust so that it qualified as a charitable trust under Utah law.13

Court administration, 2005–2019

In 2004, the trust was named as a defendant in several tort actions. In In re United Effort Plan Trust, 2013 UT 5, the Utah Supreme Court recounted that “the Trust faced a risk of defaulting in these suits because the then-trustees failed to defend them.” In May 2005 the Utah Attorney General petitioned the Third District Court in Salt Lake County, Case No. 053900848, to remove the trustees for breach of fiduciary duty and to appoint a special fiduciary. The district court granted that request and appointed Bruce R. Wisan, a certified public accountant, as special fiduciary. The court later held that the trust, as restated, was a charitable trust and that several of its provisions were unworkable, and on 25 October 2006 it entered a “Reformed Declaration of Trust of the United Effort Plan Trust.”14

An association of members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints later challenged the reformation and the court’s administration of the trust. In Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. Lindberg, 2010 UT 51, 288 P.3d 1054, the Utah Supreme Court held that the challenge to the modification, brought nearly three years later, was barred by laches, as were nearly all of the remaining claims.15

On 18 June 2019, the Third District Court ended its oversight of the trust, terminated the special fiduciary’s appointment, and dismissed the probate case. The trust’s current official site states that the 2006 Reformed Declaration remains the governing document and that the trust is managed by a seven-member board of trustees.16