## Facts

- Charles T. Melms built a large brick residence (costing over $20,000) on a quarter-acre tract in Milwaukee that served as his homestead and was associated with nearby brewery property.
- After Melms died (1869), the property was sold and conveyed to Pabst Brewing Co.; prior litigation established Pabst held only Mrs. Melms’s life estate in the homestead (an estate *pur autre vie*), while Melms’s children owned the fee in remainder.
- Over time, the area around the homestead became industrial; factories and railway tracks expanded, and adjoining brewery-related buildings were developed.
- The homestead became an isolated elevated lot (roughly 20–30 feet above street level) after surrounding parcels were graded down for business use.
- The residence became undesirable and unprofitable as housing and would not rent for enough to cover taxes and insurance.
- Pabst removed the residence and graded the parcel down to about street level to make it suitable for business use, which increased the parcel’s usefulness and value.
- The reversioners sued for waste and sought double damages under Wisconsin’s waste statute.

## Issues

1. Whether a holder of a life estate (or estate *pur autre vie*) commits actionable waste by demolishing a residence and regrading land to convert it from residential to commercial use.
2. Whether substantial alterations are permissible when surrounding conditions have permanently changed such that the original residential use is impracticable and the alterations increase the property’s overall value to the reversioners.

## Decision

- The Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed judgment for Pabst Brewing Co.
- The court held that the demolition of the dwelling and grading of the land did not constitute actionable waste on these facts.
- The court rejected a rule requiring preservation of the property’s prior physical form when external conditions have made that form economically useless.
- Because the alterations reflected permanent neighborhood changes and increased the inheritance’s market value, the reversioners’ legally protected interest was not impaired.

## Legal Principles

- Waste doctrine protects the reversioner’s interest against material impairment of the inheritance, not against all physical change.
- A tenant is not liable for “ameliorative” alterations when surrounding conditions have permanently changed, the prior use has become impracticable or valueless, and the alterations increase (or preserve) the property’s overall market value for its reasonably adapted use.
- In assessing waste, courts may consider objective economic effect on the future interest, rather than requiring retention of obsolete improvements for sentimental or aesthetic reasons.

## Conclusion

A life tenant (or holder of an estate *pur autre vie*) does not commit actionable waste by demolishing an obsolete residence and regrading land to fit permanently changed neighborhood conditions when the change makes the property economically productive and increases the value of the inheritance that will pass to the reversioners.


Melms v. Pabst Brewing Co., 104 Wis. 7, 79 N.W. 738 (Wis. 1899)