The open mines doctrine is a term of real property. Under the open mines doctrine depletion of natural resources constitutes waste unless consumption of such resources constitutes normal use of the land, as in the case of a life estate in coal mine or a granite quarry.
The life tenant cannot open the land to search for minerals and other natural resources, but if the quarries or mines were open before the tenant took the life estate, then it is not waste for the life tenant to continue their use. Where the life tenant opens the land for new mines (i.e., voluntary waste) a remainderman can enjoin such.
The sale of harvestable crops does not constitute waste.
Famous quotes containing the words open, mines and/or doctrine:
“With liberty and pleasant weather, the simplest occupation, any unquestioned country mode of life which detains us in the open air, is alluring. The man who picks peas steadily for a living is more than respectable, he is even envied by his shop-worn neighbors. We are as happy as the birds when our Good Genius permits us to pursue any outdoor work, without a sense of dissipation.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The humblest observer who goes to the mines sees and says that gold-digging is of the character of a lottery; the gold thus obtained is not the same thing with the wages of honest toil. But, practically, he forgets what he has seen, for he has seen only the fact, not the principle, and goes into trade there, that is, buys a ticket in what commonly proves another lottery, where the fact is not so obvious.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“You ask if there is no doctrine of sorrow in my philosophy. Of acute sorrow I suppose that I know comparatively little. My saddest and most genuine sorrows are apt to be but transient regrets. The place of sorrow is supplied, perchance, by a certain hard and proportionately barren indifference. I am of kin to the sod, and partake of its dull patience,—in winter expecting the sun of spring.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)