judges in their own cases: Moulton v. Parks, 64 Cal. 166, 183-184, 30 Pac. 613; Brandenstein v. Hoke, 101 Cal. 131, 133, 134, 35 Pac. 562; People v. Levee Dist. No. 6, 131 Cal. 30, 31, 63 Pac. 676.

Where an assessment for street work is to be proportioned according to benefits and to the expense of the work, there is no constitutional objection to ? statute which confers upon the superintendent of streets the power to estimate the benefits, the property owners thereafter having a hearing before the city council before the levy of the assessment: Greenwood v. Morrison, 128 Cal. 350, 352, 60 Pac. 971.

Where each parcel of land is to be assessed according to benefits and the property owner has a hearing upon such question, it is immaterial whether he has a hearing upon whether his property should be included in the district or not, because although his property is included in the district yet if the benefits are nil there would be no assessment; but where the assessment is by frontage or superficial area or value, it is clear that this inquiry is vital.

17 Property Owner has Right to Hearing as to Relative Benefit, When Determined by Local Corporation. Where the assessment is to be levied upon the basis of benefit received, to be estimated by commissioners, the property owner is entitled to a hearing before the assessment becomes a finally determined lien against the property affected thereby, for, as the court pointed out in Lower Kings River Reclamation Dist. No. 531 v. Phillips, 108 Cal. 306, 39 Pac. 630, 41 Pac. 335, otherwise it would be a proceeding in which one might e deprived of his property without due process of law" (p. 313). "For it would be no recompense, and but poor consolation to the land owner who has been overtaxed without a hearing, to assure him that the unlawful burden put upon him was the honest judgment of incompetent or negligent commissioners. And the issue of this should be determined by the tribunal of original jurisdiction (whether a court or a board of supervisors) according to a satisfactory preponderance of evidence, allowing just weight to what may appear

Whenever a local public corporation is about to be organized for the purpose of performing a public work for the cost of which an assessment is leviable, and the legislature had not determined the territorial limits of the corporation but has declared that all the property therein must be assessed, the corporation can be incorporated only after each property owner within the limits of the proposed corporation has had an opportunity to be heard as to whether his property should be included within the jurisdiction of the corporation and the district against which the assessment is to be levied.18

to have been the honest judgment of the commissioners" (p. 324). See, also, Reclamation Dist. No. 551 v. Runyon, 117 Cal. 164, 49 Pac. 131.

18 Hearing Prerequisite to Formation of Corporation in Which All Property is to be Assessed."There is nothing in the essential nature of . . . . a [public] corporation, so far as its creation only is concerned, which requires notice to or hearing of the parties included therein before it can be formed. It is created for a public purpose, and it rests in the discretion of the legislature when to create it and with what powers to endow it.

"[But under the Wright Act]. the establishment of its boundaries, and the purposes for which the district is created if it be finally organ ized by reason of the approving vote of the people, will almost necessarily be followed by and result in an assessment upon all the lands included within the boundaries of the district. The legislature thus in substance provides for the creation not alone of a public corporation, but of a taxing district whose boundaries are fixed, not by the legislature, but, after

a hearing by the board of supervisors, subject to the final approval by the people in an election called for that purpose.

"It has been held in this court that the legislature has power to fix such a district for itself without any hearing as to benefits, for the purpose of assessing upon the lands within the district the cost of a local, public improvement. The legislature, when it fixes the district itself, is supposed to have made proper inquiry, and to have finally and conclusively determined the fact of benefits to the land included in the district, and the citizen has no constitutional right to any other or further hearing upon the question. The right which he thereafter has is to a hearing upon the question of what is termed the apportionment of the tax, i. amount of the tax which he is to pay.

e., the

"But when as in this case the determination of what lands shall be included in the district is only to be decided after a decision as to what lands described in the petition will be benefited, and the decision of that question is submitted to some tribunal (the board of supervisors in this case), the parties whose lands are thus included in the petition are entitled to a hearing upon the question of benefits, and to have them excluded if the judgment of the board be against their being benefited.

Unless the legislature decide the question of benefits itself, the land owner has the right to be heard upon the question before his property can be taken': Fallbrook Irr. Dist. v. Bradley, 164 U. S. 112, 174, 175, 17 Sup. Ct. Rep. 56, 41 Law ed. 369.

But where, after the hearing and decision by the board of supervisors, the question of the organization of the proposed irrigation district is to be submitted to the electors for final action, no notice nor hearing is requisite on the question of whether such question shall be so submitted: In re Madera Irr. Dist., 92 Cal. 296, 323, 27 Am. St. Rep. 106, 28 Pac. 272,

647. Assessment must be Levied on Uniform

Standard.

While the legislature, or any public corporation upon which is conferred the discretion to determine the relative benefit supposed to be derived from a public work, may levy the assessment according to any standard or system of estimating the benefits to be derived therefrom which it may deem proper, yet such body cannot levy an assessment arbitrarily without reference to any such standard or system; and a purported assessment when so arbitrarily levied is void, and no lien can accrue as security for the payment thereof.19

(In McMillen v. Anderson, 95 U. S. 37, 42, 24 Law ed. 335, where a license tax levied upon business was attacked upon the ground that the taxpayer was not granted a hearing before the tax was collected by summary process, the claim being made that the 14th amendment of the federal constitution was thereby violated, the court said: "It seems to be supposed that it is essential to the validity of this tax that the party charged should have been present in some tribunal when he was assessed. But this is not, and never has been, considered necessary to the validity of a tax.")

19 Assessment Must be levied on Uniform Standard. In People v. Lynch, 51 Cal. 15, 21 Am. Rep. 677, where the legislature sought to confirm an assessment which had been levied by a local legislative body, and one parcel of property within the district determined to be benefited by the public work was not assessed at all, the court (pp. 22 and 23) said: "The act . . . . must be the same as if it had declared certain tracts of land to have been

....

benefited by the local improvement, and had further enacted that parts of the tract should pay the whole eost. It has been repeatedly held that an attempt by the legislature to compel each lot upon a street to pay the whole expense of grading and paving along its front cannot be maintained, because, while there is an apparent uniformity, the measure of equality required by the constitution is entirely wanting. It is far more clearly a violation of the constitutional principle of equality and uniformity to require of one lot, or any number less than all, to pay for all within a given assessment district... This act, at best, is an attempt directly to levy a contribution within a certain distriet; to declare that each lot shall pay a sum, arbitrarily fixed, as its proportion thereof, and that particular lots shall pay nothing. Such a statute . . . . [is] undoubtedly . . . . invalid, as clearly a violation of principles recognized and established by the constitution of the state."

....

Where the legislature by general act declared ne district to be benefited, but erroneously levied the assessment so that it covered certain land outside the district declared to be benefited, the assessment is void: Schumacker v. Toberman, 56 Cal. 508, 510.

Where the commissioners appointed to determine the relative benefit to be derived to each parcel of land in a reclamation district from the reclamation works apportioned an equal amount to each acre in the district, although parts of it were lower and more subject to overflow than others, and allowed certain credits to certain lands for portions of old levees upon them, the assessment is not according to benefits and cannot be sustained: Reclamation Dist. No. 537 v. Burger, 122 Cal. 442, 55 Pac. 156.

But where an assessment is levied upon the basis of benefit actually received, and it is duly determined that certain lands within the district will not be bene. fited by the work to be done, although such land is within the assessment district, no assessment need be levied against it, and the assessment against the remainder is not invalidated thereby: Reclamation Dist. No. 3 v. Goldman, 65 Cal. 635, 641, 4 Pac. 676.