Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 2).pdf/178

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152
NORTH DAKOTA REPORTS.

Minn. 92, 6 N. W. Rep. 445. It results from what has been stated that the judgment of the court below must be so modified as to grant the relief demanded by the complaint unconditionally, plaintiff to have and recover costs and disbursements in this court. Such will be the order.

Corliss, C. J., concurs.

BaRTHOLoMEw, J. (concurring specially.) I concur in a modification of the judgment in this case upon the first ground stated in the opinion of my Brother Wallin; but upon the second ground I dissent. I do not understand the proceedings of board of equalization to be so far jurisdictional that their inadvertent or unavoidable failure to meet on the day specified in the statute renders the entire tax for that year void. I think the contrary is held in Mills v. Gleason, 11 Wis. 493, and Land Co. v. Crete City, 11 Neb. 344, 7 N. W. Rep. 859; and in effect in Burt v. Auditor General, 39 Mich. 126, and Mining Oo. v. Auditor General, 37 Mich. 391 (concurring opinion of Jadge Cooley.) It is true, as stated in San Mateo Co. v. Southern Pac. R. Co., 8 Sawy. 270, 13 Fed. Rep. 722, cited in the majority opinion, that no citizen can be deprived of his property without due process of law, and that the meeting of the board of equalization is a part of the legal process, when property is to be sold for taxes. But no citizen was ever deprived of his property by its being taxed. He is only deprived of it when it is sold. There is a wide distinction between a void tax and a void sale. Had the only defect in this case been the failure of the board of equalization to meet, as required by statute, the tax deed would have been none the less void, but, in my judgment, the tax deed holder would have been entitled to reimbursement under our statute. Modified.

Coruiss, C. J. (concurring specially.) In view of the importance of the questions involved, of the dissent upon one of the points discussed, and of the opinion in Bode v. Investment Co., 1 N. D. 121, 45 N. W. Rep. 197, in which I concurred, I deem it my duty to express my views in a separate opinion. Our safest guides are the Jandmarks of principle. The de-