Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 2).pdf/185

 tutes a hearing in the constitutional sense. “The presentation to the state board by the corporation of a statement of its property and of its value, which it is required to furnish, is not equivalent to a notice of the assessment made, and of an opportunity to be heard thereon. It is a preliminary proceeding, and until the assessment the corporation cannot know whether it will have good cause of complaint. No hearing upon the statement presented is allowed and when the assessment is made the matter is closed. No opportunity to correct any errors committed is provided. The presentation of the statement can no more supersede the necessity of allowing a subsequent hearing of the owners than the filing of a complaint in court can dispense with the right of the suitor and his contestant to be heard thereon. There being, then, no provision of law giving to the company notice of the action of the state board and an opportunity to be heard respecting it, is the assessment valid? Would the taking of the company’s property in the enforcement of the tax levied according to the assessment be depriving it of its property without due process of law? It seems to us that there can be but one answer to these questions. There is something repugnant to all notions of justice in the doctrine that any board of men can be clothed with the power of finally determining the value of another’s property, according to which it may be taxed, without offering to him an opportunity of being heard respecting the correctness of their action. * * * We cannot assent to any such doctrine. It conflicts with the great principle which lies at the foundation of all just government—that no one shall be deprived of his life, his liberty or his property without an opportunity of being heard against the proceeding.”

This opinion so far has not taken notice of the fact that the board did not fail to meet at all, but only failed to meet at the time prescribed by statute. The board is required to begin its session on the first Monday of July in each year, and to hold a session of not less than two days. Comp. Laws, § 1584. The board did not meet on the first Monday, nor did it assemble on the first Tuesday. It failed to organize until the 8th of July. T can see no difference, so far as the question of “due process