POLICE POWER 27 
to law. Thus, a building erected contrary to law 
may be pulled down; * but the material of which 
it was constructed must be saved for the owner, 
according to some decisions, for it was presumably 
honestly acquired. Game unlawfully killed may 
be destroyed. 
17. Due Process of Law. By the Fifth and 
Fifteenth Amendments to the national Constitu- 
tion, it is provided that property or liberty shall 
not be interfered with without due process of law. 
Essentially this means that the party interested 
shall be notified, and have an opportunity for hear- 
ing and defense. If this hearing shall not have 
occurred before the thing has been taken, the own- 
er has his opportunity to be heard afterward. The 
burden then falls upon the officer who has taken 
the property to show that his taking of it, and 
perhaps his destruction of it, was lawful and 
necessary. If he cannot so prove, he will be con- 
sidered as having acted unlawfully. Since the 
laws presume that officers always act lawfully, it 
is considered that though he may hold an office, 
in that case he acted as a private wrongdoer, and 
so is personally liable for his misdeed.* Thus, 
when a board of health in Massachusetts ordered 
the killing of a horse for glanders, and the court 
decided that the evidence did not show that the 
horse was in fact suffering from that disease, the 
members of the board were forced to respond in 
damages.” It is very evident that it would be 
5 Hichenlaub v. St. Joseph, 6 PuBLIC HEALTH, 273, 364- 
113 Mo. 395, 18 L. R. A. 590; 366. 
King v. Davenport, 98 Ill. 305; 7 Miller v. Horton, 152 Mass. 
Hine v. New Haven, 40 Conn. 540. 
478. 
