Davis v. Reed

It is no objection to the frame of a bill for an injunction to restrain a trespass upon the ground of irreparable mischief, that it charges the injury to be almost, instead of absolutely, irreparable. The omission of the charge of irreparable mischief would not be a defect in a bill otherwise good, because the court must be satisfied, from a statement of the grievances, that the injury would be irreparable, and it is enough if the court can discover this from the allegation of facts. 'Acts which would result in the destruction of all the timber on a man’s home-plantation, where wood and timber are necessary to the enjoyment-of the property in that character, are sufficient to authorise an injunction to restrain the cutting of such wood and timber. The fact that the bill was not filed until after the injunction was ordered, isr at most, but a mere irregularity, which cannot operate a-reversal of the order granting it. It is a practice in some of the counties to order the injunction before the filing of the bill, and where a practice has become inveterate, it is better' to adhere to it till changed by a prospective rule, than to incur the risfc sf- doing injustice to a party who may have followed- it.-

Appeal from the equity side of the Circuit Court for Caroline County. This appeal is taken from an order granting an injunction Upon a bill filed by the appellee against the appellants. The bill alleges that Isaac Wright, who died in 1850, by his will, devised to his daughter, the complainant, a tract of land called the “Old Nichols Farm/* whereon she now resides; that this land is part of that originally owned by Isaac Nichols, and was conveyed by lames Brown, as insolvent trustee of Daniel Caulk, to Wright, in 1827; that the complainant has been in the quiet and peaceable possession of the arable land included in said farm, eVer since the decease of her father, and also of the woodland attached thereto, and that her father was in the peaceable possession of the same from the timé of his purchase thereof to his death; that among the land always included, and held and used, occupied and cut upon, as part of this farm, by her father, and ail tenants and occupants under him, is an adjoining piece of timber land, containing about thirty-five acres, more or less; that about the month of January 1855, the defendants commenced cutting and destroying the timber upon the same, and are now engaged with a large force, from ten to fifteen in number, cutting and destroying the said timber, and have announced their determination to cut and carry off all the timber thereon, despite the entreaties and remonstrance of the complainant; that her said tract of land has no more timber thereon than is absolutely necessary for said farm, including the part now nearly cut down and destroyed by the defendants; that the destruction of the Said timber land will be of great and almost irrepable injury to her said farm; that no compensation in damages, for the actual value of said timber, will compensate her for such destruction of said timber; that she intends instituting suits of ejectment and trespass against the said parties, but before the same can be brought to trial, all the wood and timber on said land will be destroyed and carried' off, as one-half thereof is now cut down, and the said parties have announced their intention not to desist until the whole is cut down. The bill then prays for an injunction restraining the defendants and! their agents and servants, from all manner of cutting and waste upon said tract of timber land, and from hauLing off or removing from the same the timber and wood already cut and now on the premises. The bill refers to the will of Isaac Wright and the deed from Brown to Wright, as the'title papers under which the complainant claims, and states that they are filed as exhibits with the bill and made part thereof, but they do not appear in the record, which states that “the exhibits referred to in theaforegoing bill have never been filed.” The court, (Hopper., J.,) by an order endorsed on the back of the bill, and dated the 11th of April 1855, ordered the injunction to issue as prayed, and the writ was issued on the 19th of April, the day on which the bill was filed. From this order the defendants, after filing their answer, appealed.