204 U.S.

Syllabus.

CROWE v. HARMON.

APPEAL FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF THE TERRITORY OF

ARIZONA.

No. 70. Submitted October 31, 1906.-Decided January 21, 1907.

Decided on authority of Crowe v. Trickey, ante, p. 228.

71 Pac. Rep. 1125, affirmed.

Mr. W. C. Keegin, Mr. F. H. Hereford and Mr. S. E. Hazzard for appellant.1

Mr. Eugene S. Ives for appellees.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER: This case is identical in all essential respects with that just decided, and must take the

same course.

Judgment affirmed.

BALLARD v. HUNTER.

ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF ARKANSAS.

No. 123. Argued December 7, 1906.-Decided January 14, 1907.

A State may make reasonable discriminations in regard to service of process for enforcement of liens for taxes and assessments on real estate between resident and non-resident owners, providing for personal service on the former and constructive service by publication on the latter. Land stands accountable to the demands of the State, and owners are charged with knowledge of laws affecting it, and the manner in which those demands may be enforced.

Whether provisions as to notice and service in a state statute have been complied with is wholly for the state court to determine.

Due process of law has never been precisely defined; while its fundamental requirement is opportunity for hearing and defense, the procedure may be adapted to the case, and proceedings in court are not always essential.

1 For abstract of argument see ante, p. 234.

VOL. CCIV-16

Statement of the Case.

204 U. S.

The laws of a State come under the prohibition of the Fourteenth Amendment only when they infringe fundamental rights.

The St. Francis Basin Levee act of Arkansas of 1893 does not deprive nonresident owners of property assessed and sold pursuant to the statute of their property without due process of law or deny such owners the equal protection of the laws.

74 Arkansas, 174, affirmed.

THIS writ of error is prosecuted to review a judgment of the Supreme Court of Arkansas sustaining the validity of a sale of the lands of plaintiffs in error for levee taxes.

The State of Arkansas, by an act of its legislature passed February 15, 1893, created eight counties, or portions of eight counties, which constituted what was known as "St. Francis Basin," a levee district, for the purpose of constructing and maintaining levees against the waters of the Mississippi River, and incorporated a board of directors, giving it power to "levee the St. Francis front in Arkansas and to protect and maintain the same." The board was also authorized, for the purpose of building, repairing and maintaining the levee, to assess and levy annually a tax on all lands within the district, not exceeding five per cent of the increased value or betterment estimated to accrue from the protection given by the levee against floods from the river. The act prescribed that the landowners should determine upon the assessments and levy of the tax in a meeting called for that purpose upon notice by the board, and prescribed the procedure to be observed in the assessment and levy of the tax, and provided that the lands assessed should be entered upon the books, in convenient subdivisions, as surveyed by the United States Government, with appropriate columns showing the names and residences of owners of the lands, and mortgages of record, if any, known to the assessors; and that no error in the description of the lands should invalidate the assessments, if sufficient description was given to ascertain where the land was situated. The assessment was made a lien upon the lands in the nature of a mortgage.

Section 11 of the act was amended in 1895. As amended, it provided that a tax collector should be elected by the board of directors and be furnished a list of assessments for his county; that he should proceed to collect the assessments, and that if the assessments were not paid within thirty days a penalty of twenty-five per cent should at once attach for such delinquency. The board of directors was required to enforce the collection of the taxes by chancery proceedings in a court of the county in which the lands were situated, having chancery jurisdiction, and it was provided that the court should give judgment against the persons claiming to be the owners of the lands, if known to the board, for the amount of such assessments, interests, penalties and costs. It was further provided that if the ownership of any of the delinquent lands should be unknown to the board the lands might be proceeded against "as being owned by unknown owners;" that the judgment should provide for sale of the delinquent land for cash by a commissioner of a court after advertisement as hereafter set out; and, further, that the proceedings and judgment should be in the nature of proceedings in rem, and it should be immaterial if the ownership of the lands should be incorrectly alleged; that the judgment should be enforced only against the land and not against any other property. All lands for each of the counties might be included in one suit, and all delinquent owners, including those unknown, might be made defendants, notice of the pendency of the suit to be given as against non-residents of the county and unknown owners respectively by publication weekly, for four weeks prior to the day of the term of court on which final judgment should be entered for the sale of the land, in some newspaper published in the county where the suit might be pending. The form of notice which might be given is inserted in the margin.1

"The following named persons and corporations, and all others having

Statement of the Case.

204 U.S.

It was provided that where the owners were unknown that fact should be stated in the published notice, and against any defendant who resided in the county, and whose ownership appeared on the records, notice should be given by the service of personal summons of the court at least twenty days before the day on which the defendant was required to answer, as set out in the summons. And the suit should stand for trial at the first term of the court after the complaint should be filed, if said four weeks in the case of a non-resident or unknown defendant, or twenty days in case of resident defendants, should expire before the first day of the term or during the term of the court to which the suit was brought, unless a continuance be granted for good cause shown, within the discretion of the court, and such continuance for good cause shown might be granted as to part of the land or defendants without affecting the duty of the court to dispose finally of the others as to whom no continuances might be granted. And it was further provided that actual service of summons should be had when the defendant was in the county or when there was an occupant upon the land. In all cases where notice had been properly given and where no answer had been filed, and the cause decided for the plaintiff, the court, by its decree, should grant the relief as prayed in the complaint, and should require the commissioner to sell the lands at the or claiming an interest in any of the following described lands, are hereby notified that suit is ending in the Circuit Court of County, Arkansas, to enforce the collection of certain levee taxes on the subjoined list of lands, each supposed owner's lands being set opposite his or her or its name, respectively, together with the amounts severally due from each, to wit."

Then shall follow a list of supposed owners, with a descriptive list of said delinquent lands and amounts due thereon, respectively, as aforesaid; and said published notice may conclude in the following form:

"Said persons and corporations, and all others interested in said lands, are hereby notified that they are required by law to appear and make defense to said suit, or the same will be taken for confessed, and judgment final will be entered directing the sale of said lands for the purpose of collecting said delinquent levee taxes, together with the payment of interest, penalty and costs allowed by law."

courthouse door, at public outcry, for cash, after first having advertised such sale weekly for two weeks consecutively, and convey to the purchasers the lands sold, the titles of which should thereupon vest in the purchaser against all persons whomsoever, saving rights to infants and insane persons. The act contained the following:

"Provided, that at any time within three years after the rendition of the final decree of the chancery court herein provided for, the owner of the lands may file his petition in the court rendering the decree, alleging the payment of the taxes on said lands for the year for which they were sold, and upon the establishment of that fact the court shall vacate and shall set aside said decree."

Section 2 of the act of 1895, amending the act of 1893, provided as follows:

"That section 13 of said act be amended so as to read as follows: Said suit shall be conducted in accordance with the practice and proceedings of chancery courts in this State, except as herein otherwise provided, and except that neither attorneys nor guardians ad litem, nor any provision of section 5877 of Sandels & Hill's Digest of the Statutes of Arkansas, shall be required, and except that said suits may be disposed of on oral testimony, as in ordinary suits at law; and this law shall be liberally construed to give said assessment lists the effect of bona fide mortgages, for a valuable consideration, and a first lien upon said land as against all persons having an interest therein; Provided, that no informality or irregularity in holding the meetings or in the description of valuation of the lands, or in the names of the owners or the number of acres therein, shall be a valid defense to such action."

Suit was brought, as provided for in the acts, and, in the complaint, plaintiff in error, A. B. Ballard, was made a defendant and named as a non-resident of Crittenden County, Arkansas. Josephine W. Ballard was not made a defendant. In the list of lands attached to and made part of the complaint the following appears: