When attempting to validate topology for areas containing more than 32 stacked polygons, the Validate Topology geoprocessing tool frequently fails without an error message or with the error message: "Validate Topology failed. A failure was detected inside the topology engine. [error id: 128]."
The work around in the knowledge base article did not work: http://resources.arcgis.com/content/kbase?fa=articleShow&d=238741. Export the polygon layers into a new geodatabase. 2. Delete the legitimate stacked polygons. 3. recreate a topology with the overlapping polygon rule.