Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

2 Johns. Ch. 121

Hawley v. Clowes

New York Court of Chancery

Decided February 6, 1816

New York Court of Chancery · decided 1816-02-06

THE bill prayed for a partition of land, and for an injunction to stay waste in cutting down and carrying away the timber. It stated, that the plaintiff and defendant owned the land as tenants in common, in equal undivided moieties, and that the defendant is in the actual possession of the whole by himself, or his tenant, and is cutting down the timber, and threatening to persevere; but admitted the plaintiff’s title as tenant in common.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1816-02-06

How this case has been cited

Cited by 9 later decisions — most recently November 1907

7 state decisions

401816182018301840185018601870188018901900decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

The Chancellor.

¶1[ * 123 ]

¶2The injunction must be modified, so as to confine it to timber then standing and growing on the premises, and not wanted for the necessary use of the farm. The last-cited case admitted the authority of the *Court to grant the writ between tenants in common, in special cases, as where the defendant was sworn to be insol*123vent; and Lord Eldon, in the subsequent-cases of Hole v. Thomas, (7 Vesey, 589.) and of Tworl v. Tworl, (16 Vesey, 128.) admitted the propriety and necessity of this power in the Court, between tenants in common, where the waste was destructive to the estate, and not within the usual and legitimate exercise of enjoyment. The case, therefore, of the exercise of this power, must rest in sound discretion; it is not a case of a want of jurisdiction. Here is a bill for partition, and pending the suit it appears to be extremely fit that the tenant in common in possession, should not be permitted to strip the land of its timber. It is destructive, in many cases, of the value of the estate, and not consistent with a prudent enjoyment by the real owner. The statute of W. 2. 13 Edw. I. c. 22. (sess. 10. ch. 6.) gives an action of waste by one tenant in common against another. It is, therefore, an injury recognized by law, and the remedy by injunction is applicable to every species of waste, it being to prevent a known and certain injury; this remedy is peculiarly proper and appropriate pending a bill for partition of the very land. It comes within the equity of the statute, (of sess. 10. ch. 50. s. 29.) which prohibits a defendant, pending a suit for the land, from making waste, and directs the Court, where the suit is pending, to prevent it. The injunction, therefore, under the above modification, must be continued until answer, and further order.

¶3Injunction continued.

/2/johnsch/121 · .json · Public domain