— Also termed visitorial.
“To eleemosynary corporations, a visitatorial power is attached as a necessary incident…. [P]rivate and particular corporations, founded and endowed by individuals for charitable purposes, are subject to the private government of those who are the efficient patrons and founder. If there be no visitor appointed by the founder, the law appoints the founder himself, and his heirs, to be the visitors. The visitatorial power arises from the property which the founder assigned to support the charity; and as he is the author of the charity, the laws give him and his heirs a visitatorial power; that is, an authority to inspect the actions and regulate the behavior of the members that partake of the charity. This power is judicial and supreme, but not legislative.” 2 James Kent, Commentaries on American Law *300–01 (George Comstock ed., 11th ed. 1866).
