A trust cannot be amended by its beneficiaries to allow for the removal and replacement of a trustee without judicial approval, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled.

In a unanimous July 19 decision in Trust Under Agreement of Edward Winslow Taylor, the justices found that a section of the Uniform Trust Act dealing with the modification of a trust does not allow changes that open the door to a trustee’s removal, which is governed by a separate section of the act.