N. Y. Rep.] Opinion of the Court, per VANN, J. Section four makes provision for notice as follows: "Beginning within twenty days after the passage of this act the said board shall publish a notice subscribed by them" in the official newspapers "for three weeks * ** that, pursuant to the provisions of this act, the said assessments will be open, to public inspection, beginning twenty days after the passage of this act, and until October thirty-one, 1909, in the office of said board * * * and that application for reduc tion or cancellation of said assessments may be made to said board at its said office, in writing, on or before September one, 1909, specifying the grounds therefor, by any person deeming himself aggrieved by said assessments, and that upon such application a hearing, if requested, will be granted by said board or by a member or members thereof. No other or further notice of the provisions of this act shall be required to be given." The act was passed to relieve the situation resulting from our decision in the case of People ex rel. Bridgeport Savings Bank v. Feitner (191 N. Y. 88) and should be read in connection therewith. The statute is curative in part, but, as it also provides for the completion of an imperfect assessment, duly commenced under a valid statute but not finished because notice had not been given nor an opportunity to be heard afforded, as required by the Tax Law, to this extent it is in the nature of an act authorizing a re-assessment. The object of the statute was to lay hold of assessments commenced several years before the act was passed and to authorize their completion by doing what had not been done, although required by law. It provides for a notice to be given and a hearing to be had in the place of those omitted, owing to a misunderstanding of the statute governing the procedure. Any person deeming himself aggrieved by the tentative assessment is given ample opportunity to make complaint, to have it duly heard and determined, and to credit or restitution if the tax has been paid and the assessment is reduced or canceled. All persons who make no complaint pursuant to the opportunity afforded, are concluded, the same as they would have been if the oppor Opinion of the Court, per VANN, J. [Vol. 196. tunity had been duly given as required by the Tax Law. On account of the irregularity in failing to afford an opportunity to be heard, we were compelled to reverse in the Bridgeport Savings Bank case and the legislature sought to remedy the omission by providing that an opportunity to be heard might still be given and the tax completed, even at a late day, by proceedings which should have been taken in the first instance. This act is analogous in principle and similar in inethod of procedure to one passed April 30th, 1883, which was held valid by the Supreme Court of the United States. (Williams` v. Supervisors of Albany, 122 U. S. 154; L. 1883, ch. 345.) In that case it appeared that in the years 1876, 1877 and 1878 the assessors of the city of Albany in assessing shares of bank stock failed to make the assessment in each of those years until after the first of September, which was too late to give the notice and the opportunity to be heard according to the statute then in force. The act of 1883 provided that the notice and opportunity might still be given, and confirmed the assessments subject to the right of the shareholders to ask for a cancellation or reduction after the notice and opportunity, thus authorized, had been given, and directed restitution when the tax had been paid, of the principal and interest of any sum deducted on the complaint of a person aggrieved. This was the second attempt of the legislature to remedy the evil, the first (L. 1881, ch. 271) having failed because the legislature itself sought to make the assessments without providing for an opportunity to be heard (Albany City Nat. Bank v. Maher, 9 Fed. Rep. 884.) It was strenuously contended by able counsel that the second statute also was invalid for many reasons and especially because the defects in the assessments were such as could not be legalized even if the tax had not been collected, and because the legislature had no power by a curative act to authorize a completion of the assessments after the period had expired within which, according to the original statute, they might have been made. N. Y. Rep.] Opinion of the Court, per VANN, J. Mr. Justice FIELD, speaking for all the justices, said: "The irregularities in the assessment for the years 1876, 1877, and 1878, in that no entry of any assessment of the shares of the plaintiff and of the stockholders whose claims were assigned to him was made on the assessment roll of those years until after the first of September, and after the time for revising and correcting the assessment had passed, and in the defect of the oath annexed in its averment as to the estimate of the value of real estate, were, in our judgment, cured by the validating act of April 30, 1883. The power of taxation. vested in the legislature is, with some exceptions, limited only by constitutional provisions designed to secure equality and uniformity in the assessment. The mode in which the property shall be appraised, by whom its appraisement shall be made, the time within which it shall be done, what certificate of their action shall be furnished, and when parties shall be heard for the correction of errors, are matters resting in its discretion. Where directions upon the subject might originally have been dispensed with, or executed at another time, irregularities arising from neglect to follow them may be remedied by the legislature, unless its action in this respect is restrained by constitutional provisions prohibiting retrospective legislation. It is only necessary, therefore, in any case to consider whether the assessment could have been ordered originally without requiring the proceedings, the omission or defective performance of which is complained of, or without requiring them within the time designated. * * But it is not perceived why it (the assessment) might not be legalized and confirmed by the legislature giving to them (the taxpayers) such opportunity after the time originally designated had expired. No just right of the taxpayers would thereby be defeated. * It is difficult to see on what plausible ground the validity of this act can be questioned, unless the power of the legislature to cure by legislative act any irregularities of the assessment be denied. Every right of the shareholder who had paid taxes on the assessment, and it does not appear that there * * * Opinion of the Court, per VANN, J. [Vol. 196. were any others, was secured. He could present any claim he might have for a reduction or cancellation of the assessment, and be heard respecting it. He occupied the same position he would have held, if the assessment of his shares had been placed on the assessment roll within the time required — that is, before the first of September - and the oath annexed had been without any fault or omission in its averments. The plaintiff and the other shareholders were bound, as owners of property, to bear their just proportion of the public burdens, and if, in ascertaining what that proportion should be, some steps in the proceeding were omitted which invalidated the assessment, it would seem but just that the defect should be cured, if practicable, and the shareholders not be allowed to escape taxation, and thus entail the burden they should bear upon other taxpayers of the community." (p. 163.) The case was fully discussed by Judge WALLACE when it was before the United States Circuit Court. His answer to the objection that the taxpayers were not given an oppor tunity to be heard until after they were compelled to pay the taxes was in part as follows: "The general rule has often been declared that the legislature may validate, retrospectively, any proceedings which they might have authorized in advance. And it is immaterial that such legislation may operate to divest an individual of a right of action existing in his favor, or subject him to a liability which did not exist originally. In a large class of cases this is the paramount object of such legislation. If, therefore, it was within the competency of the legislature to provide for the collection of a tax by a system which requires the taxpayers to pay in advance of an opportunity to be heard, but which permits them to have a subsequent hearing and to obtain restitution, if restitution ought to be made, the validating act was constitutional. In judicial proceedings due process of law requires a hearing before condemnation and judgment before dispossession; but when property is appropriated to the public use under the power of eminent domain or under * * * N. Y. Rep.] Opinion of the Court, per VANN, J. the power of taxation, different considerations from those which prevail in controversies between individuals obtain. Thus, when property is taken under the power of eminent domain by the state, or by municipal corporations by state authority, the adjudications sanction the validity of laws which permit the property of the citizen to be appropriated before a hearing and before compensation. It is sufficient if provision is made by the law by which the party can obtain compensation and for a hearing before an impartial tribunal to award the compensation. * * There seems to be no * reason for a different rule when the money of the taxpayer is appropriated by the sovereign power under the right of taxation. * * * The operation of the present act is to preserve, substantially, to the taxpayers the right of which they were originally deprived, to give them an opportunity to question the justice of the assessment and to restore to them the suns which were illegally collected of them. In view of the large and almost unlimited discretion which resides in the legislature to regulate the mode and conditions of taxation, it is believed to be valid and effectual to legalize the proceedings here." (Williams v. Board of Supervisors of the County of Albany, 21 Fed. Rep. 99.) We have quoted at such great length from these opinions because the Williams case applies so directly to the case in hand that we regard it as controlling. It was relied upon by this court in Terrel v. Wheeler (123 N. Y. 76), where we sustained a curative act passed to relieve the city of Brooklyn from the alarming situation that followed our decision in the Brevoort case. (Brevoort v. City of Brooklyn, 89 N. Y. 128; L. 1882, ch. 363.) It has frequently been cited and never disapproved so far as we have been able to discover. We add a few citations, none so directly in point, but all tend ing to uphold the power of the legislature to authorize a reassessment, or the completion of an imperfect assessment by doing something which should have been done before, but was not done in time, or not done at all. (Matter of Van Antwerp, 56 N. Y. 261; Spencer v. Merchant, 100 N. Y. 585; |