DUVALL v. WATERS. 575

reference to a presumption in favour of the validity of his title pend-
ing the suit, are said to be waste; but if he asks, in a court of
chancery, to have the doing of such acts prevented by an injunc-
tion, they are denominated trespasses.(i) This difference in cha-
racterizing the same injurious acts, when proposed to be prohibited
by an estrepement, as waste; and when proposed to be restrained
by injunction as trespass, has been attended with some confusion.
And therefore in relation to the peculiar species of injunctions, now
under consideration, all such acts as would be deemed waste, when
done by an admitted particular tenant, if done after the institution
of any suit involving the title, or of a suit for partition, it may be
well to denominate eventual waste.

The judicial records of the State, and the acts of Assembly
regulating officers' fees shew, that the writ of waste as well as the
writ of estrepement were at one time in common use in Mary-
land.( j) But here, as in England, these writs have fallen into
disuse, and are now seldom, or never brought, having given way to
the more easy and expeditious remedy by an action upon the case
in nature of waste at common law; by which the plaintiff obtains
satisfaction for the injury done to his inheritance by a recovery of
damages alone ;(&) and in Maryland to an injunction from chancery
which performs the office of a writ of estrepement.

The whole subject of waste, in Maryland, seems to have passed,
almost altogether, from the cognizance of the courts of common
law to that of the court of chancery; and the shifting of this mat-
ter so entirely, from the one jurisdiction to the other, may be attri-
buted to the nature of the injury requiring redress; to the different
constitutions of the tribunals; and to their peculiar modes of pro-
ceeding. Waste is a wrong which cannot always be duly esti-
mated and remunerated in damages; it is an injury which requires
to be met, in its onset, or earliest approaches, by a strong and
decisive preventive remedy, acting with a promptness almost
amounting to surprise; and yet affording to the party restrained ^
a speedy hearing. No adequate remedy of this kind, it is evi-
dent, can be obtained from a court of common law, open only
at short intervals during the year; acting from term to term; and

(i) Eden. Inj. 136; Mitcbell v. Dors, 6 Ves. 147; Crockford v. Alexander.
15 Yes. 133; Mogg v. Mogg, Dick. 670.—(j) 2 Harr. Ent. 149,800; Adams v.
Breraton, 3 H. & J. 124; 1763, ch. 18, s. 89 & 04; 1779, eh. 25, s. &—(k) 8 Blac.
Com. 227; Greene v. Cole, 2 Saund. 252, note 7; White v. Wagner, 4 H. & J. 373;
McLaughlin v. Long, 5 H. St J. 113.

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