In Goff v. Charlier (44 Misc 28 [Sup Ct, NY County 1904]), the Supreme Court addressed a statute addressing the release of a defendant under civil arrest, and utilizing identical language. While reporting that it had been unable to find any case directly in point, the court there expressly rejected the position here espoused by the defendant. The court in Goff v. Charlier (at 29) interpreted the phrase "unreasonably delays," as utilized to describe those actions of a plaintiff which relieve a defendant of some otherwise applicable consequence, as in fact necessarily implying some "positive act in the way of obstruction": "Section 572 of the Code of Civil Procedure provides that a defendant under arrest must, upon his application, be discharged from custody if the plaintiff has unreasonably delayed the trial of the action. In the present case it may be that there has been unreasonable neglect to prosecute the action, but there is nothing whatever to show that there has been any affirmative act, on the part of the plaintiff, which the word 'delay,' as used in the section referred to, was, in my judgment, intended to import. The expression 'neglects to proceed' is a familiar one in the Code of Civil Procedure and exactly describes what the plaintiff did in this case. On the other hand, although the word 'delay' in its ordinary sense may not imply any positive act in the way of obstruction, it should, I think, be held, in the section referred to, to have such significance. In the present case it was as much within the power of the defendant's attorney as of the plaintiff's to serve a notice of trial, put the cause on the calendar and bring it on for trial, consequently whatever delay has taken place is as much the fault of the one side as of the other. In my opinion the statute did not intend to permit a defendant to take advantage of a delay which he himself had consented to or contributed to."