In Land Co. v. City of Crete (Neb.) 7 N. W. Rep. 859, it is held: “An injunction to restrain the collection of a tax will not be granted unless the tax complained of is either void, or its enforcement decidedly inequitable.” And further: “A formal assessment, although not made in the mode contemplated by the law, if not inequitable, will support a levy otherwise legal.” In this case it was alleged that no assessment whatever was made of plaintiff's property for the year 1874 as required by law. Instead of valuing the property according to his own judgment of its worth, the city assessor adopted a valuation made by a precinct assessor when assessing under a state law for general revenue, and returned it to the city councils his own valuation, and that this pretended assessment placed an excessive valuation on ‘plaintiff's property, and would thereby cause plaintiff to pay more than his just proportion of taxes, and that said council never sat as a board of equalization, and plaintiff had no opportunity to show that pretended assessment was too high, and that no oath was attached to the assessment roll. Plaintiffs bill was dismissed, with costs. See also, Dundy v. Richardson Co., 8 Neb. 508, 1 N. W. Rep. 565.
Wood v. Helmer, supra, was an action brought to cancel tax certificates on the sole ground that the assessment roll was not verified. Plaintiff neither paid, nor offered to pay, the taxes justly chargeable against the land. It was held that there was no equity in the petition, and judgment dismissing it was affirmed; and the court say: “But, if the owner of the land does not wish to take the hazard of an adverse title being made to his land by tax-deed, the legality of which remains undetermined, and files his petition in equity to enjoin the execution of such deed, he must do equity, by paying, or offering to pay, his just proportion of the public burdens.” And to precisely the same effect is Boeck v. Merriam, 4 N. W. Rep. 962.
In Morrison v. Hershire, 32 Iowa 271, the court say: “We understand that it is a settled rule in equity that, where a party is in conscience bound to pay acertain sum of money which, together with an amount he is not legally bound to pay, is brought as a legal claim against him, equity will not restrain the collection of the whole unless he pay or offer to pay, by tender, the sum
