California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from Talbot v. Wake, 141 Cal.Rptr. 463, 74 Cal.App.3d 428 (Cal. App. 1977):
In Chase v. Trout, after referring to the above rule, the court rejected the contention "that every act required by law to be done by any person, officer, or body in the course of the proceeding is 'jurisdictional,' in the sense here intended, so that its omission or defective performance ousts jurisdiction and renders all subsequent acts void, and that none of these irregularities are affected by the curative clause." (146 Cal. at pp. 356-357, 80 P. at p. 83.) It noted: "By a long line of decisions it has become the settled doctrine that, with respect to any material defect or irregularity which could be cured by the council, the remedy by appeal is the only remedy; so that if the party does not appeal he waives the objection, and if he does appeal the judgment of the council is conclusive." (Id., at p. 357, 80 P. at p. 83.) It then reexamined the principle that "all other irregularities up to the issuing of the warrant those which are material, and which cannot be remedied by the council . . . are fatal, and render the entire proceeding void." (Id., at p. 357, 80 P. at p. 83.) It concluded, after reviewing many authorities: "The correct proposition is, that as the legislature has power to devise any scheme for the assessment and levy of taxes for local improvements, provided such scheme includes such notice and opportunity for hearing to the owner of property taxed as will be sufficient to constitute the due process of law required by the constitution, and otherwise complies with constitutional limitations and restrictions, so the legislature, by a curative clause in the law establishing the scheme, may provide that the issuance of a bond, or the execution of a deed, in the enforcement of such levy or assessment, shall be conclusive evidence of the regularity of the performance of all the required steps in the proceeding, excepting those that are necessary to constitute the due process of law, or to comply with any other constitutional prerequisite. As to all these other statutory steps or acts, the same power which prescribes them is competent to declare that their non-observance shall not be fatal to the validity of the tax and that no inquiry may be made concerning them. This is substantially the effect of the statute in question here. The conclusive-evidence clause of section 4 of the Bond Act is a part of the law under which the proceeding was carried on, and its effect is the same as if it
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