§ 226. Rights below the standard of vested rights. In the language of Austin (2 Jurisp. 5th ed. 856), “When we oppose a vested or present to a future or contingent right, we are not, I apprehend, opposing a right of one class to a right of another, but we are rather opposing a right to a chance or possibility of a right." First among such chances or possibilities are certain expectancies, or mere contingencies which are not in any full and complete sense rights at all. In Randall v. Krieger, 23 Wall. 137, it was held that during the life of the husband, the right of dower is a mere expectancy or possibility, and during that period the legislature may increase or diminish it or may take it away entirely. It was therefore held in that case that there was no violation of vested rights when a married woman's claim to dower in land conveyed was taken away by a legislative act giving validity to an ineffectual acknowledgment of the deed of a married woman. And so a husband has no such vested right in the future profits of his wife's land, as may not be taken away by statute. Neilson v. Kilgore, 145 U. S. 487. In Pennie v. Reis, 132 U. S. 464, it was held that neither police officers or their representatives had such vested right in a public fund created by statute, to be paid to them upon their disability, death or resignation, as prevented the repeal or modification of such statute prior to the happening of any such event. In Mobile Transp. Co. v. Mobile, 187 U. S. 479, it was held that as an Alabama statute, granting to the city of Mobile so much of the shore and soil under an adjacent tidal stream as is within the city boundaries, amounted to no more than a declaration that the rights possessed by the state in such shore and soil were granted to such city, no vested rights of owners of land adjacent to such stream were disturbed thereby. In Randall v. Krieger, 23 Wall. 137, it was held that the expectation of a person that he will succeed as heir to the fee simple estates of a living ancestor or to his estates in fee tail is not a vested right; until that event (the ancestor's death) occurs the law of descent

and distribution may be moulded according to the will of the legislature. In the same category stands a joint tenant's claim to take by survivorship property held in joint tenancy. Holbrook v. Finney, 4 Mass. 568.

§ 227. Curative legislation. Mention must here be made of the right of a state to enact curative legislation for the perfection of rights already equitably vested by the removal of certain technical defects in legal titles by reason of the omission of certain formalities the state might have dispensed with in the first instance. Vested rights are not thereby interfered with; "Laws curing defects which would otherwise operate to frustrate what must be presumed to be the desire of the party affected, can not be considered as taking away vested rights. Courts can not regard rights as vested contrary to the justice and equity of the case." State v. Newark, 27 N. J. L. 197. A proceeding may be validated by a retrospective act curing its irregularities, whenever such proceeding might have been authorized in advance by the legislature. Bolles v. Brimfield, 120 U. S. 759; Street v. United States, 133 U. S. 299; Thompson v. Lee County, 3 Wall. 327; St. Joseph Twp. v. Rogers, 16 Wall. 644; Thompson v. Perrine, 103 U. S. 806.

The claim of a party to such irregular proceeding, because of its irregularity, to insist on titles which, but for that irregularity, would have passed to others, is not a vested right protected by the Constitution, and is subordinate to the equitable rights acquired under the proceeding validated. Raverty v. Fridge, 3 McLean 230; Barton v. Morris, 15 Ohio 408; Chestnut v. Shane, 16 Ohio 599. The rights of third persons, depending on the invalidity of the original proceeding, and acquired bona fide before the curative act, are vested, and therefore exempt from its operation. Brinton v. Seevers, 12 Iowa 389; Barrett v. Barrett, 120 N. C. 127; McGehee, p. 156-8, & notes. See also, Wilkinson v. Leland, 2 Pet. 627; McFaddin v. Evans

Snider-Buel Co., 185 U. S. 505; Satterlee v. Mathewson, 2 Pet. 380; Randall v. Krieger, 23 Wall. 137.

§ 227a. No vested right in any general rule of law or policy of legislation. In Chicago & A. R. Co. v. Tranbarger, 238 U. S. 67, the Court said: "For just as no person has a vested right in any general rule of law or policy of legislation entitling him to insist that it shall remain unchanged for his benefit (Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113, 134; Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S. 516, 532; Buttfield v. Stranahan, 192 U. S. 470, 493; Martin v. Pittsburg & L. E. R. Co., 203 U. S. 284), so an immunity from a change of the general rules of law will not ordinarily be implied as an unexpressed term of an express contract. See Gross v. United States Mortg. Co., 108 U. S. 477; Pennsylvania R. Co. v. Miller, 132 U. S. 75, 83." In holding that a mere departure by the courts of a state from a rule of property established by prior decisions does not violate any equity under the Fourteenth Amendment, the Court, in O'Neil v. Northern Colorado Irrig. Co., 242 U. S. 20, said: "It is suggested that the cases cited established a rule of property and that any departure from it violated the plaintiff's rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. But we already have said that the cases do not establish the rule supposed, and if they did, something more would be necessary before the plaintiff could come to this court. Sauer v. New York, 206 U. S. 536, 547, 548; Chicago & A. R. Co. v. Tranbarger, 238 U. S. 67, 76."

§ 228. Right of a state to regulate its procedure. Entirely apart from the two classes just described of imperfect rights, below the standard of vested rights, affecting vested rights of property only, stands the great subject of procedure, affecting the rights of life, liberty and property,-"adjective law," which can not confer a vested right because "there is no vested right in a mode of procedure." League v. Texas, 184 U. S. 156; Backus v. Fort Street Union Depot Co., 169 U. S. 557. And yet the con

trol of a state over its procedure is not absolute. "The state has full control over the procedure in its courts, both in civil and criminal cases, subject only to the qualification that such procedure must not work a denial of fundamental rights, or conflict with specific applicable provisions of the Federal Constitution." Brown v. New Jersey, 175 U. S. 175. See also West v. Louisiana, 194 U. S. 263.

§ 229. All laws impairing vested rights within the scope of due process. It is all-important to keep steadily in view the foregoing distinctions between vested rights and such expectancies, possibilities and contingencies as do not measure up to that standard, because the first question that arises in every case is whether or no the right involved is a vested right, or a right of the contingent class below that standard. If the right is vested, then the next question that arises is whether or no there has been such an arbitrary interference with such a fundamental right as will bring the infraction within the due process clauses of the Constitution. There are a great many lawful interferences that may take place with a vested right, such for instance as result from a proper exercise of the taxing power, the power of eminent domain, the police power, and such supreme sovereign powers as the Federal Government may constitutionally exercise. As the due process clauses do not prohibit retroactive laws as such (League v. Texas, 184 U. S. 156, 161), a vested right may be impaired without redress by such a law provided the interference is not purely arbitrary in character. In the recent case of Wagner v. Leser, 239 U. S. 207, the Court said: "Taking the decision in this court together, we think that it results that the legislature of a state may determine the amount to be assessed for a given improvement and designate the lands and property benefited thereby, upon which the assessment is to be made without first giving an opportunity to the owners of the property assessed to be heard

upon the amount of the assessment or the extent of the benefit conferred. We do not understand this to mean that there may not be cases of such flagrant abuse of legislative power as would warrant the intervention of a court of equity to protect the constitutional rights of land owners, because of arbitrary and wholly unwarranted legislative action. The constitutional protection against deprivation of property without due process of law would certainly be available to persons arbitrarily deprived of their private rights by such state action, whether under the guise of legislative authority or otherwise." In O'Neill v. Leamer, 239 U. S. 244, the announcement was made that "We have repeatedly said that the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment, embodying fundamental conceptions of justice, can not be deemed to prevent a state from adopting a public policy for the irrigation of arid lands or for the reclamation of wet or overflowed lands. . . . there is nothing in the Federal Constitution which denies to them the right to formulate this policy or to exercise the power of eminent domain to carry it into effect." In Myles Salt Co. v. Iberia Drainage Dist., 239 U. S. 478, the Court held, first, that although under the laws of Louisiana the action of the police jury in determining, in the exercise of its discretion, what property shall be included in a drainage district can not be inquired into except on a special averment of fraud, one not charging fraud or attacking the state statute, may attack the law as administered as depriving him of his property without due process of law by the inclusion within a drainage district of property in no wise benefited by the proposed system; second, that power arbitrarily exerted, imposing a burden without a compensating advantage of any kind, amounts to confiscation and violates the due process provision of the Fourteenth Amendment. "We are not dealing," said the Court, "with motives alone, but as well with their resultant action; we are not dealing with disputable grounds of discretion or disputable degrees of benefit, with an exercise of power