Court Opinion

ID: 9700699
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 21:46:02.748439+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:13.775533
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing
BURKE, Judge.
Respondents have filed a motion to amend the record in this case and have petitioned for a rehearing based upon the record as it would be if amended.
The motion to amend is not an appropriate one to be made in this court. It is 'only where unusual circumstances are shown that this court will settle a statement of the case for appeal. The motion should have been to remand the record to enable the district court to consider the merits of the motion to amend. The circumstances of this case, however, would not justify the granting of a motion to remand -for such a purpose. Passing upon a similar request in Ricks v. Bergsvendsen, 8 N.D. 578, 580, 80 N.W. 768, 770, this court said:
“These requests, coming, as they do, after the case has been submitted and decided, and after an opinion has been written and filed, are not seasonably made. Without holding that this court is devoid of authority to grant such a request, under any possible state of facts, we do, without hesitation, hold that similar requests will ordinarily be denied, and will not be granted in any case, unless it presents features which are peculiar and very exceptional, and such as this case does not present.” See also Garbush v. Firey, 33 N.D. 154, 156 N.W. 537.
In the instant case, a new trial has been granted and no reason has been advanced to explain the inaccuracy of the statement of the case except the inadvertence and oversight of counsel. Features of such an exceptional character that a remand would be justified are not present.
Furthermore, our principal ground for granting a new trial was that the verdicts of the jury were ambiguous. If the record were corrected, as requested by respondents, this ambiguity would be even more clearly apparent than it is upon the record as it now stands. The motion to amend and the petition for rehearing are each denied.
SATHRE, C. J., MORRIS and TEI-GEN, JJ., and JOHN SAD, District Judge, concur.
STRUTZ, J., did not participate. JOPIN SAD, District Judge, First Judicial District, sitting in his stead.