Waste

Several definitions have been given, and are presented; but those from English sources should be read with the recollection that American courts have held, and with obvious good reason, that the doctrine of waste, as understood in England, is not fully applicable to a new and unsettled counti-y.

Kidd V. Dennison, 6 Barb. 9; Keeler v. Eastman, 11 Vt. 293; Findlay v. Smith, 6 Munf. 134.

Thus the cutting and selling of growing trees is not necessarily waste in this country, in every case where by the common law of England it would be so held. In deciding the question of waste, regard is to be had to the condition of the land, and whether good husbandry, as understood and practised here, requires that the land should be cleared or the trees felled and marketed. To what extent wood and timber may be cut without waste is a question for the jury.

Drown v. Smith, 52 il/e. 141.

And it is not waste to cut down wood or timber so as to fit the land for cultivation, provided it does not injure the inheritance, and is conformable to the rules of good husbandry even though the wood or timber is sold or consumed off the premises.

Keeler v. Eastman, 11 Vt. 293.

As to what particular acts of injury have been held to be or not to be waste, in the various states, see U. S. Dig. tit. Waste. Waste is a lasting damage to the reversion caused by the destruction, by the tenant for life or years, of such things on the land as are not included in its temporary profits.

Proffitt V. Henderson, 29 Mo. 325.

Waste is any thing that does permanent injury to the inheritance. Jackson v. Brown- The destruction or material alteration of any part of a tenement, by a tenant for life or years, to the injury of the person entitled to the inheritance; such, for example as the demolition of buildings, or the cutting of timber. (1 Steph. Com. 241.) Spoil and destruction done, or allowed to be done, to houses, woods, lands, or other corporeal hereditaments, by the tenant thereof, during the continuance of his tenancy. (3 7rf. 603.) BurriU. Waste is a spoil and destruction of an estate, either in houses, woods, or lands, by demolishing, not the temporary profits only, but the very substance of the thing, thereby rendering it wild and desolate, which the common law expresses very significantly by the word vastum.

3 Bl. Com. 223.

It is spoil or destruction, done or permitted, to lands, houses, or other corporeal hereditaments, by the tenant thereof, to the prejudice of the heir or of him in reversion or remainder.

Bouvier.

A spoil or destruction in houses, gardens, trees, or other corporeal hereditaments, to the disherison of him that hath the remainder or reversion in fee-simple or fee-tail.

Co. Litt. 53; 2 Bl. Com. 284.

A spoil made either in houses, woods, lands, &c., by the tenant for life or years, to the prejudice of the heir, or of him in the reversion or remainder.

Cowel; KUchin, 168.

Any spoil or destruction in houses, gardens, trees, &c., to the prejudice of the expectant in fee. It is either legal, subdivided into voluntary or. commissive, or permissive or omissive; and equitable, which comprehends some acts not deemed waste at the common law.

Wharton.

Spoil and destruction done, or allowed to be done, by a tenant for life or other particular estate, to houses, woods, lands, or other corporeal hereditaments, during the continuance of his particular estate therein. Whatever is hurtful to the freehold or inheritance is waste. Waste is either voluntary or permissive: voluntary, if it be a matter of commission, as by pulling down a house; permissive, as if a house be allowed to fall into ruin for want of necessary repairs. Mozley S/- W. Waste denotes that havoc or devastation which arises from exceeding the right of user. The word is, therefore, applicable only to persons having limited interests or estates in lands; e.g., tenant for life, or pur autre vie, tenant in dower, and tenant by the curtesy; and is inapplicable, as a general rule, to tenants in fee-tail or in feesimple. By the common law, waste was punishable in the cases only of tenants for life who were such by operation of law, — namely, tenant in dower and tenant by the curtesy; but by the statute of Marlbridge (52 Hen. III.), ch. 23, it was made punishable in the cases also of tenants for life, or pur autre vie, or for years, who were tenants have long interfered to remedy waste in cases in which the courts of law were powerless to interfere; and thus there grew up a distinction of waste into legal, on the one hand, being such as law can restrain, and equitable, on the other hand, being such as equity alone can restrain. However, by the j udicature acts, this distinction appears to be abolished. While it subsisted, the divisions and subdivisions of waste were the following: Legal waste, being either voluntary waste or permissive waste; and equitable waste, which was in all cases voluntary, and so is described as equitable waste only. Voluntary legal waste consisted in the following particulars: Pulling down houses, pulling down wainscots, doors, windows, furnaces, and other such fixtures, causing timber trees to decay, stubbing up underwood, cutting down fruit-trees in an orchard, cutting down trees which shelter the mansion; also, opening new gravel-pits, lime-pits, clay-pits, &c., or new mines of metal, coal, or the like; also, the conversion of old meadow land into arable, or of arable into plantation, or the like. Permissive legal waste consisted in suffering houses to get into decay; but the courts have ceased to give any remedy or assistance in such cases. Equitable waste consisted in " malicious, extravagant, or humorsome" acts of destruction on the part of a tenant who was not impeachable for waste at law.

Brown.