The present proceeding has some of the characteristics of a suit to quiet title, a form of action well established as a branch of equity jurisdiction. While in the exercise of its inherent equity jurisdiction a court of chancery acts only in personam, it is no doubt competent for the legislature, so far as the constitutional provision regarding due process of law is concerned, to confer upon courts of equity a jurisdiction which shall, as to property situate within that state, operate upon it in some way other than by merely directing the defendants to do or refrain from doing some act concerning the property. The state has power to enact statutes under which the interests of persons in property within the state shall be affected so far as that property alone is concerned, and the action to quiet title, although originally under the old chancery practice merely a personal action against the defendant, may by statute be so extended as to permit the court to bind the interest of the defendant in the property, even though such defendant may not have been personally served with process within the state. Arndt v. Griggs, 134 U. S. 316, [10 Sup. Ct. 557], was a case involving the validity of a judgment obtained against a non-resident on publication of summons under statutes of Nebraska similar to our own (Code Civ. Proc., sec. 738 et seq.), authorizing persons claiming title to real estate to bring actions against any person or persons claiming an adverse estate or interest therein for the purpose of determining such estate or interest and quieting the title to said real estate. The court said: "But it is earnestly contended that no decree in such a case rendered on service by publication only is valid or can be recognized in the federal courts. . . . The propositions are, that an action to quiet title is a suit in equity; that equity acts upon the person; and that the person is not brought into court by service by publication alone. While these propositions are doubtless correct as statements of the general rule : respecting bills to quiet title, and proceedings in courts o equity, they are not applicable or controlling here. The question is not what a court of equity, by virtue of its general powers and in the absence of a statute might do, but it is, What jurisdiction has a state over titles to real estate within its limits, and what jurisdiction may it give by a statute to its own courts, to determine the validity and extent of the claims of non-residents to such real estate? If a state has no

power to bring a non-resident into its courts for any purposes by publication, it is impotent to protect the titles to real estate within its limits held by its own citizens; and a cloud cast upon such title by a claim of a non-resident would remain for all time a cloud, unless such non-resident shall voluntarily come into its courts for the purpose of having it adjudicated. But no such imperfections attend the sovereignty of the state. It has control over property within its limits; and the condition of ownership of real estate therein, whether the owner be stranger or citizen, is subject to its rules concerning the holding, the transfer, liability to obligations, private or public, and the modes of establishing titles thereto. It cannot bring the person of a non-resident within its limits-its process goes not out beyond its borders-but it may determine the extent of his title to real estate within its limits; and for the purpose of such determination may provide any reasonable methods of imparting notice. The well-being of every community requires that the title to real estate therein shall be secure, and that there be convenient and certain methods of determining any unsettled questions respecting it." And in Perkins v. Wakeham, 86 Cal. 580, [21 Am. St. Rep. 67, 25 Paç. 51], this court, in applying the same rule to a similar case, said: "Unless the method of giving notice above prescribed (i. e. by publication under section 412 of the Code of Civil Procedure) is unreasonable or in conflict with some provision of the constitution or principle of natural justice, it cannot be held invalid. In determining the question of its validity, the nature of the action and the effect of the judgment must be considered. While it is true, as a general proposition, that an action to quiet title is an action in equity which acts upon the person, it is also true that the state has power to regulate the tenure of immovable property within its limits, the conditions of its ownership, and the modes of establishing the same, whether the owner be citizen or stranger. While a decree quieting title is not in rem, strictly speaking, it fixes and settles the title to real estate, and to that extent certainly partakes of the nature of a judgment in rem." There may be some expressions in the opinion in Hart v. Sansom, 110 U. S. 151, [3 Sup. Ct. 586], which, on their face, conflict with the rule as declared in the two cases just cited. In Arndt v. Griggs, however, the court carefully explained the Sansom case, and

pointed out that that case had to do with the effect of a judgment obtained on publication of summons in a purely personal action. Similarly in Lynch v. Murphy, 161 U. S. 247, 251, [16 Sup. Ct. 523], it was said: "The Hart case was explained in Arndt v. Griggs, 134 U. S. 316, [10 Sup. Ct. 557], in which last case it was held that the duty of determining unsettled questions respecting the title to real estate was local in its nature, to be discharged in such mode as might be provided by the state in which the land was situated, where such mode did not conflict with some special inhibition of the constitution and was not against natural justice; and we held that nothing inconsistent with this doctrine was decided in Hart v. Sansom." (See, also, Roller v. Holly, 176 U. S. 398, [20 Sup. Ct. 410]; Bennett v. Fenton, 41 Fed. 283; Venable v. Dutch, 37 Kan. 515, [1 Am. St. Rep. 260, 15 Pac. 520]; Dillon v. Heller, 39 Kan. 599, [18 Pac. 693]; McLaughlin v. McCrory, 55 Ark. 442, [29 Am. St. Rep. 56, 18 S. W. 762]; Harris v. Palmore, 74 Ga. 273; Lane v. Innes, 43 Minn. 137, [45 N. W. 4]; Shepherd v. Ware, 46 Minn. 174, [24 Am. St. Rep. 212, 48 N. W. 973]; Lantry v. Parker, 37 Neb. 353, [55 N. W. 962]; Sloane v. Martin, 145 N. Y. 524, [45 Am. St. Rep. 630, 40 N. E. 217]; Roller v. Holly, 13 Tex. Civ. App. 636, [35 S. W. 1074].)

So far, then, as the procedure authorized by the act under discussion affects the rights of persons known and designated in the proceedings who could not, on account of non-residence or for other sufficient reason, be personally served with summons within the state, it cannot, in view of these adjudications, be said that the service by posting, publication, and mailing fell short of that due process of law which is applicable to this sort of proceeding. The objection that under the act no persons need be named as defendants in the title of the action does not appear to us to have any bearing upon the question of due process of law, so far as known claimants are concerned. The constitutional guaranty of due process requires that in actions of this character persons whose interest in the land may be affected must be given such notice of the pendency of the proceeding and of the fact that their interests may be affected as is reasonable and appropriate to the nature of the case. If it be once conceded, as it must be, that such notice may, as to known claimants who cannot be personally served, be given by publication, we think it unimportant that the

person to whom such notice is given is not named in the caption of the complaint or the summons. The law requires him to be named in the affidavits and in the memoranda attached to the summons. If any notice whatever reaches such person, it will be, whether through the posting upon the premises, or the publication, or the service by mail, a notice which contains his name and advises him that his interest in the described property is involved in the proceeding, and that in order to defend such interest he must appear and plead within a given time. We see no reason why, so far as such designated claimants are concerned, the notice prescribed by the act does not satisfy every requisite of due process of law.

The principal contention upon this question of due process is that the act is unconstitutional in that it seeks to bar by the decree the rights of unknown owners, that is, those who are not alleged in the complaint or the affidavit to claim any interest in the property and who cannot have any notice of the fact that their rights are involved other than the general notice given by the posting and the publication.

If by a substituted service of any sort a court may be given power to adjudicate the rights of unknown claimants in a proceeding of this character, it seems plain that' the notice to such claimants here provided is sufficient. All substituted service must rest upon the ground of necessity, and, where it is permissible at all, it must be such as would be reasonably likely to bring the fact of the pendency and the purpose of the proceeding to the attention of those interested. Where, as here, the summons describing the nature of the action, the property involved, the name of the plaintiff and the relief sought, is posted upon the property, and is published in a newspaper for two months, and a lis pendens containing the same particulars is recorded in the recorder's office and entered upon the recorder's map of the property, we cannot doubt that, so far as concerns the possible claimants who are not known to the plaintiff, the notice prescribed by the act is as complete and full as, from the nature of the case, could reasonably be expected.

Indeed, the learned counsel for respondent, while they make some criticism upon details of the act regarding the notice, take their stand upon a broader proposition, and contend that in a proceeding which is not strictly in rem it is not within the

power of the legislature to authorize on any form of process a decree which shall by its own force cut off the rights of persons not named or made parties to the proceeding. It is claimed that under the constitutions in force in American jurisdictions, the rights of unnamed persons who may claim an interest in real estate cannot be cut off by any judicial proceeding except by one which makes the adjudication against them final only upon their failure to come in and assert their rights within a specified time after the judgment or decree. In such proceeding the decree does not operate ex proprio vigore, but becomes the starting point of a statutory period of limitation and the right is extinguished by failure to assert it within this period. In a way, the procedure thus outlined is analogous to the common-law fine, but because such method of accomplishing the result may have been the only one known to the common law, it does not follow that other methods may not be devised by the legislature without exceeding the limits. of due process of law. No doubt the forms of procedure in common use at the time the constitutions were adopted must be taken to have been understood by the framers as embraced within the terms "due process of law." But in prohibiting the taking of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, those who adopted these constitutions did not intend to provide that the details of practice and procedure then existing should forever remain unchanged. The legislature may provide entirely novel and unprecedented methods of procedure, provided that they afford the parties affected the substantial securities against arbitrary and unjust spoliation which are embraced within the system of jurisprudence prevailing throughout the land. "It follows," says the Supreme Court of the United States in Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S. 516, [4 Sup. Ct. 111], "that any legal proceeding enforced by public authority, whether sanctioned by age and custom, or newly devised in the discretion of the legislative power, in furtherance of the general public good, which regards and preserves these principles of liberty and justice, must be held to be due process of law." It is not, therefore, a sufficient objection to the action created by this statute to say that no precisely similar proceeding was known to the common law.

Applying the principles which have led the courts in cases like Arndt v. Griggs, 134 U. S. 316, [10 Sup. Ct. 557], and