CHAPTER IV 

 LIABILITY OF TENANT AS TO WASTE 



30. The Definition of Waste. Uner 'the English 

 common law as developed at the time of the formation of 

 the American Union an obligation rested upon every tenant 

 of land to treat the premises in such manner that no harm 

 should be done them and that the estate should revert to 

 those having an underlying interest, undeteri orated by any 

 wilful or negligent act. Any violation of this obligation 

 by a tenant was considered an act of waste. * Legal waste 

 has been defined as any spoil or destruction, done or per- 

 mitted, to lands, houses, gardens, trees, or other corporeal 

 hereditaments, by the tenant thereof, to the prejudice of 

 the heir, or of the reversioner or the remainderman. 2 An 

 American court in stating the English common law doctrine 

 of waste has said that any act or omission of duty by a 

 tenant of land which does a permanent and substantial 

 injury to the freehold or inheritance is waste. 3 



31. The Development of the Doctrine of Waste. 



In the early development of the common law the only 

 persons against whom the legal action called waste could 

 be successfully maintained were the tenants of estates 

 created by act of law. 4 It was held that where an estate 

 was created by act of law there was an obligation assumed 

 by the law to insure that the estate should finally be turned 

 over to the one entitled to the fee undiminished as a result 

 of the intervening estate which the law had created. 5 

 Unless restrained by particular words from committing 

 waste, tenants for life, for years or at will were not liable 



1. 40 Cyc. Law and Proc., Ed. 1904, p. 498. Ain. and Eng. Ency, of Law, 2d Ed.. 



Vol. 30, p. 236. 



2. Black's Law Dictionary. 



3. King v. Miller, 99 N. C. 593, 6 S. E. 660. 



4. 40 Cyc. 512. For contrary view see Land. & Ten., Tiff. 1910, p. 724. 



5. Am. & Eng. Ency, of Law, 2d Ed. Vol. 30, p. 259. 



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