Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 2).pdf/186

 of law” is concerned, whether there is a failure to meet at the time fixed by law or an omission to meet at all. It must not be lost sight of in this discussion that a mere opportunity for a hearing is not sufficient to constitute “due process of law." There must be legal notice of such opportunity for a hearing. It would be mockery to assert that the citizen had been protected because there had been afforded a general opportunity for a hearing, of which he had no legal notice. “It is not customary to provide that the taxpayer shall be heard before assessment is made, but a hearing is given afterwards, either before the assessors themselves or before some court or board of review; and of the meeting of that court or board the taxpayer must in some manner be informed, either by personal notice, which is reasonably certain to reach him, or—which is equivalent—by some general law which fixes the time and place of meeting, and of which he must take notice. Said Justice Fieldin the Railroad Tax Cases, 13 Fed. Rep. 722-751: “Notice is absolutely essential to the validity of the proceedings in any case. It may be given by personal citation, and in some cases it may. be given by statute; but given it must be in some form.” All the adjudications speak the same language. It is undoubtedly well settled that when the statute, as in this state, fixes the time of the hearing, every citizen is deemed to have sufficient notice of that fact to constitute the proceedings “due process of law” if the opportunity for hearing is not denied. In the Railroad Tax Cases the court said: ‘Notice to him will be deemed sufficient if the time and place of hearing be designated by statute.” And in Hagar v. Reclamation Dist., 111 U. 8. 701, 4 Sup. Ct Rep. 663, the court observed “that the law in prescribing the time when such complaints will be heard gives all the notice required.” See, also, Railroad Co. v. Washington Co., 3 Neb. 30-42; Black, Tax Titles, § 30; Cooley, Taxation, p. 266. But what notice had the plaintiff of this late meeting of the board of equalization? He had no personal notice; nor would that, in my judgment, have been sufficient, for the only notice which the law recognizes as legal is that which the law itself prescribes. Certainly he has no notice by virtue of the statute, for that informed him that the board would meet upon only