Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 2).pdf/187

 two days—i. e., the first Monday and the first Tuesday of July—unless its session was continued by adjournment. It distinctly informed him that the board would not meet for the first time to his surprise and disadvantage at some future day. If it did not so inform him, then he must be on the alert for an indefinite time, momentarily expecting the board to assemble without authority of law and in direct defiance of its mandates. This is true of the rest of the community. A doctrine which would keep the people constantly on the watch at the place where the meeting is required to be held, with the danger of losing a hearing if they should for a moment slack their vigilance, would be intolerable. The principle which underlies the decision in Kuntz v. Sumption, 117 Ind. 1, 19 N. E. Rep. 474, is controlling. That principle is that the citizen has no notice that the board of equalization will act without the line of their authority. The board in that case increased the amount of an assessment. Their action was held to be without jurisdiction, for the reason that the law provided for no notice to the taxpayer, no notice of such action, and that the fact that he may have been notified and may have appeared before the board was entirely immaterial. The law is to be tested by what the citizen may of right demand under its provisions. Said the court: “The statute does not: provide for notice to taxpayers whose taxes it is proposed to increase; and this infirmity destroys it in so far as it affects such citizens. It is not enough that in fact the taxpayer does have some notice or information, for the law must provide for notice, or else no legal notice can be given. A man may be subpoenaed as a witness in an action pending against him, but, unless he is summoned or notified as a party under some law authorizing a summons or a notice, the proceedings are utterly void. A man may be served with a written notice that a petition for a ditch is pending; but if there is no law authorizing notice it will be unavailing. A notice not authorized by law is, in legal contemplation, no notice.” See, also, Stuart v. Palmer, 74 N. Y. 188. The opportunity for a hearing which the law gave, and of which plaintiff had legal notice, was never afforded to him by the board. The alleged opportunity for a hearing was one of which he had no legal or