Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 2).pdf/314

 to the extent of reversing the action of the court below whem such action is, in our judgment, unwatranted by the statute which confers the power to act at all. In the case under consideration —unlike that cited above—the grounds upon which the court below proceeded to revive and extend the right to settle a bill of exceptions are spread out fully upon the record brought to this court. The entire scope of the alleged cause shown for the action of the lower court is presented in a brief sentence, which we quote from the affidavit showing cause, as follows: “That afterwards this deponent discovered that he had committed an error in causing said action to be placed upon the calendar of the supreme court without first having a bill of exceptions settled by the judge of said district court; that such error was one occasioned by this deponent’s misconstruction of the law in relation to bills of exception upon appeal to the supreme court.” This showing does not appear to us to present a case of “misconstruction of the law.” It nowhere appears that the plaintiff acted upon any construction of the law relating to the settlement of bills and statements until nearly four years after the trial. The showing presents a case of utter disregard of the statute, and the excuse offered to the district court was “ misconstruction of the law.” To our mind, the excuse offered for plaintiff's laches falls far short of constituting the “good cause shown,” upon which alone the district court can lawfully act; and hence that the allowance and settlement of the bill was without authority of law. 1f an attorney’s ignorance of the law of the case could ever be received as a valid excuse for Jaches, surely this record presents no such case. In this case the defense offered no obstacles and engaged in no dilatory tactics tending in the least to delay or obstruct the plaintiff in settling a bill of exceptions, and yet no move was made in the directon for nearly four years after the right to move arose. The law requiring the settlement of bills of exception was during territorial times, and still is, statutory law; and for this reason the excuse of ignorance wauld be all the more untenable if offered. In this case, as we have seen, it is not offered, but in lieu of ignorance counsel ask us to accept “misconstruction of the law” as an excuse, although wherein there was any “misconstruction” is not suggested upan