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13 E. 1, STAT. 1. CAP. 14, PROCESS IN WASTE, 155 For an account of the proceedings at common law to prevent waste, see Jefferson v. Bp. of Durham, 1 B. & P. 120. The form of the writ of waste may be seen in 2 Harr. Ent. 773. Remedy by injunction.—With us, however, the equitable remedy of injunc- tion is now the universal process to stay waste, and the jurisdiction is rec- ognized in the Act of 1785, ch. 72, sec. 28, incorporated in the Code, Art. 16, secs. 51-53,1 which provides that if any person, against whom an injunction to stay waste issues, shall commit or suffer any waste to be done after service of the injunction, he may be made to pay double damages therefor. So too the authority of equity is well settled to decree an account and satis- faction for past waste; if an injunction is asked to stay further waste. But if the bill be confined to injuries done before the filing of the bill, and do not allege any apprehension of future injury, no ground of equitable inter- ference arises, Duvall v. Waters, 1 Bl. 569, where an elaborate account of the preventive and corrective remedies for waste is given, Hubbard v. Mow- bray, 20 Md. 165. "In general," says Chancellor Bland in Duval! v. Waters, "an injunction may be obtained in this State as in England to stay waste in all cases where an action of waste would lie at common law, whether there be any privity of title or not, and in a variety of others in which no such action could be brought, even where there was a subsisting privity of title or con- tract between the parties." A mere threat to commit waste (as by sending a surveyor to mark trees, Jackson v. Cator, 5 Ves. Jun. 688,) is a sufficient foundation for an injunction before any waste is actually done, and an injunction may be granted where no account of damages could be claimed, or where the waste done is so insignificant that there could be no recovery of damages at law, (for if trivial damages are given at law the Court will give the defendant leave to enter the judgment for himself, Governors, &c. of Harrow School v. Alderton, 2 B. & P. 86.) Waste by tenant.—Accordingly, in cases between landlord and tenant it is the constant practice to restrain injuries to the premises by the tenant amounting to waste at common law, on account of the insufficiency in gen- eral of the remedy at law.2 In the Georges Creek C. & I. Co. v. Detmold, 1 Md. Ch. Dec. 371, the Chancellor was clearly of opinion, that where there is privity of title, as between tenant for life or years and the reversioner, it is not necessary to shew irreparable injury or destruction to entitle the plain- tiff to an injunction. Here waste was held to be trespass. And the doc- trine* was laid down broadly in Maddox v. White, 4 Md. 79, that a 119 lessor may by injunction prevent his lessee, or those claiming or holding under him or acting by his authority, from converting the demised premises to uses inconsistent with the terms of the contract, and from making material alterations for such purposes, as also from committing other kinds of waste; and if the premises have come to an assignee, the original lessee need not be made a party to the suit. This case was approved and followed ! Code 1911, Art. 16, secs. 78-80 (as now amended). -• Crowe v. Wilson, 65 Md. 479. Cf. Dudley v. Hurst, 67 Md. 44; Scully v. Rose, 61 Md. 408; Potomac Dredging Co. v. Smoot, 108 Md. 54; Susque- hanna Co. v. St. Clair, 113 Md. 667. |
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Alexander's British statutes in force in Maryland. 2d ed., 1912
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