Court Opinion

ID: 6735892
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-20 23:18:23.657022+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:01:46.571981
License: Public Domain

Spalding, J.
I concur in that part of the foregoing opinion, holding that the record does not disclose such exceptional facts as to warrant this court in issuing the writ requested on the relation of a private relator, but am of the opinion that a case showing most extraordinary circumstances should be presented to justify a court in holding that a statute conceded to be invalid can in effect be validated by the laches of either the sparse population of a large territory, or state officials who have no constitutional authority to bind either the state or the county in such a matter. The fact that three, or four months after the only election held in a county organized under an unconstitutional statute before a proceeding to determine its status was commenced does not, in my opinion, justify a finding of such laches as are necessary to put life into a statute void ab initio.
In my opinion the facts in this case are entirely inadequate to make the doctrine of State v. McLean County, 11 N. D. 356, 92 N. W. 385, applicable.