L. 1909, ch. 27 Meaning of Terms §§ 19,20 State, to be read in evidence, there shall be contained in the same book or pamphlet, a printed certificate of the secretary of State, that such copy is a correct transcript of the text of the original laws. For such certificate the secretary of State shall collect such a fee as he shall deem just and reasonable." § 19. Day, calendar. A calendar day includes the time from midnight to midnight. Sunday or any day of the week specifically mentioned means a calendar day. This section was Statutory Construction Law, L. 1892, ch. 677, § 27 pt., as amended by L. 1894, ch. 447, § 1. Section 19 of the Statutory Construction Law of 1892 is now covered by sections 13, 41. 66 Meaning of term days as used to specify time within which certificate of nomination shall be filed: see note Ann. Cas. 1914A 932. What constitutes a 66 day."- Twenty-four hours constitutes a full day. In re Norton, (1898) 34 App. Div. 79, 53 N. Y. S. 1093, appeal dismissed (1899) 158 N. Y. 130, 52 N. E. 723. Fractional part of day. Not only under our statute, but generally throughout the country, fractions of days are not considered and a day is treated as a mere point of time not having duration; but, of course, a day in fact is not a mere point of time, but has substantial duration, and it necessarily follows that when a day is taken as a point of time and its fractions ignored any rule of computation must either extend or diminish the accurate period of time computed. The difficulty is inherent in the subject and impossible to avoid. Aultman, etc., Co. v. Syme, (1900) 163 N. Y. 54, 57 N. E. 168, 79 A. S. R. 565, modifying 23 App. Div. 344, 48 N. Y. S. 231; Judd v. Fulton, (1850) 4 How. Pr. 298. Nor does the law regard fractions of a day in the service of process, notices or pleadings, and a notice served upon the afternoon of June 6, of an application to be made on the morning of June 11, for the appointment of commissioners under section 193 of the Highway Law, is five days' notice thereof within the meaning of that statute. Matter of Niel, (1907) 55 Misc. 317, 106 N. Y. S. 479. And the only instance in which the law regards fractions of a day is where the hour itself is material, as in cases involving the priority of liens. Marvin v. Marvin, (1878) 75 N. Y. 240; Haden v. Buddensick, (1875) 49 How. Pr. 241; Phelan v. Douglass, (1855) 11 How. Pr. 193. Courts may, however, when substantial justice requires it, take cognizance of fractions of a day, and may ascertain the precise hour when a statute took effect by the approval of the executive. Louisville Tp. v. Portsmouth Savings Bank, (1881) 104 U. S. 469, 26 U. S. (L. ed.) 775; Ottman v. Hoffman, (1894) 7 Misc. 714, 28 N. Y. S. 28. Fractions of day in computation of time: see notes 2 Ann. Cas. 135; Ann. Cas. 1914C 95. Cited. Kittinger v. Buffalo Traction Co., (1899) 160 N. Y. 377, 54 N. E. 1081, affirming 25 App. Div. 329, 49 N. Y. S. 713. § 20. Day, computation. A number of days specified as a period from a certain day within which or after or before which an act is authorized or required to be done means such number of calendar days exclusive of the calendar day from which the reckoning is made. Sunday or a public holiday, other than a half holiday, must be excluded from the reckoning if it is the last day § 20 Meaning of Terms L. 1909, ch. 27 of any such period, or if it is an intervening day of any such period of two days. In computing any specified period of time from a specified event, the day upon which the event happens is deemed the day from which the reckoning is made. The day from which any specified period of time is reckoned shall be excluded in making the reckoning. Amended L. 1910, ch. 347, by changes in the third and fourth sentences. These sentences formerly read as follows: "In computing any specified number of days, weeks or months from a specified event, the day upon which the event happens is deemed the day from which the reckoning is made. The day from which any specified number of days, weeks or months of time is reckoned shall be excluded in making the reckoning." The act amending the section provided that "nothing in this act contained shall affect any action or proceeding now pending in any court." Section 20 of the Statutory Construction Law of 1892 is now covered by section 33. This section was part of section 27. of the Statutory Construction Law of 1892, and formerly read as follows: "A calendar day includes the time from midnight to midnight. Sunday or any of the week specifically mentioned means a calendar day. A number of days specified as a period from a certain day within which or after or before which an act is authorized or required to be done means such number of calendar days exclusive of the calendar day from which the reckoning is made. Sunday or a public holiday other than half-holiday must be excluded from the reckoning if it is the last day or an intervening day of any such period of two days. In computing any specified number of days, weeks or months from a specified event, the day upon which the event happens is deemed the day from which the reckoning is made. The day from which any specified number of days, weeks or months of time is reckoned shall be excluded in making the reckoning. Night-time includes the time from sunset to sunrise." General regulations respecting time: see Code Civ. Proc., §§ 780-787. Time of taking effect of laws: see LEGISLATIVE LAW, § 43. Statement in session law as to passage of law: see LEGISLATIVE LAW, § 44. Computation of time where instrument is payable at a fixed period after date, after sight, or after specified event: see NEGOTIABLE Instruments Law, § 146. “From" as word of inclusion or exclusion in computation of time: see note, 15 Ann. Cas. 27. Meaning of word "to" in computation of time: see note 2 Ann. Cas. 518. Meaning of term "about" when used with reference to time: see note 17 Ann. Cas. 742. 1. Computation with reference to certain day or event, 28. II. Sunday or holiday in computation of time, 32. 1. Generally, 32. 2. Time within which act may or must be done, 35. I. COMPUTATION WITH REFERENCE TO CERTAIN DAY OR EVENT. Early rule in state.- In Ex parte Dean, (1824) 2 Cow. 605, 14 Am. Dec. 521, the court, referring to the English rule which was supposed to include a day on which an act is to be done as the day on which the time limited by statute commences to run, used the following language: 66 We have departed L. 1909, ch. 27 from the rule of construction adopted by the English courts, and hold that the same mode of computation is to be adopted upon statutes which prevails both in England and in this state as to notices; that is to say, one day is to be counted inclusive and the other exclusive. We held this at the last term upon the statute, in relation to the sale and redemption of lands upon execution, which gives to the judgment creditor fifteen months from the sale within which he may redeem. Where the sale was on the 15th of August, 1822, we gave the creditor the whole of the 15th of November, 1823, to redeem." So, in Homan v. Liswell, (1827) 6 Cow. 659, where an execution was dated March 7th, returnable thirty days from date, it was held that the thirty days did not expire until after the 6th of April, and that where the computation of time in a statute is to be from an act done, the first day is to be excluded. In Cornell v. Moulton, (1846) 3 Denio 12, an action was commenced on February 14, 1845, upon a note which was due on February 14, 1839, and the question was whether the statute of limitations had run, the language of the statute being that such action should be commenced within six years next after the cause of action accrued. The court said: "Our cases all go to establish one uniform rule, whether the question arises upon the practice of the court or the construction of a statute, and the rule is to exclude the first day from the computation. The question has not before arisen upon the statute of limitations, but it has been fully settled in the decisions upon other statutes involving the same principle. When the period allowed for doing an act is to be reckoned from the making of a contract or the happening of any other event, the day on which the event happened may be regarded as an entirety, or a point of time, and so be excluded from the computation." In McGraw v. Walker, (1859) 2 Hilt. 404, a similar question arose upon a note due October 4, 1852, upon which an action was commenced October 5, 1858, and the court held that the action was commenced within the limitation of the statute. But in People v. Broome, (1838) 19 Wend. 87, where a creditor's redemption of lands, sold on July 18, 1835, was sought to be made on October 19, 1836, the court said: "The rule of computation of time in respect to notices, or where an act is to be done, in which we usually exclude the first and include the last day, does not apply, as here there can be no fraction of the nineteenth day of October to be disregarded, as the whole of it necessarily comes within the three months, by the statute commencing on the expiration of the year, which is the last moment of the eighteenth day of October." General effect of statute. The ordinary rule in determining the time within which an act required to be done in an action or special proceeding shall be performed, is to exclude the first day and to include the last; and the statute discloses no intention on the part of the legislature materially to change the existing rule for the computation of time, except, perhaps, to fix more definitely the event from which the count is to be made. People v. Burgess, (1897) 153 N. Y. 561, 47 N. E. 889; Sugerman v. Jacobs, (1914) 160 App. Div. 411, 145 N. Y. S. 429. The pith of the rule is the inclusion of one day and the exclusion of the other, unless the statute governing a particular case unmistakably regulates the matter otherwise. Jones v. Wallace, (1902) 75 App. Div. 401, 78 N. Y. S. 35. Applicability of statute to weeks, months, and years. In Aultman, etc., Co. v. Syme, (1900) 163 N. Y. 54, 57 N. E. 168, 79 A. S. R. 565, modifying 23 App. Div. 344, 48 N. Y. S. 231, it was declared that this section 27 of the Statutory Construction Law (see historical note to this section, supra) did not apply to a period of years, it accordingly being held that, as the law ignored fractions of a day, the term of five years within which an execution may be issued thereon, without leave, should be computed by including within that term the day upon which the judgment is entered. After referring to a conflict between the decision in prior litigation between the same parties reported in 91 Hun 632, 36 N. Y. S. 528, and Connecticut Nat. Bank v. Bayles, 8 20 Meaning of Terms 6 L. 1909, ch. 27 (1897) 17 App. Div. 596, 45 N. Y. S. 305, reversed 163 N. Y. 561, 57 N. E. 1107 (see infra, this paragraph), the court said: "Had the legislature intended to apply that method to periods of years it could have disposed of the whole subject in a single sentence by saying that the day from which any specified period of time is to be reckoned shall be excluded from the reckoning. But it did not say that. The silence of the statute in this regard is, therefore, significant of the legislative intent to exclude from its operation other periods than those enumerated. We do not think that this rule of statutory construction is rendered inapplicable, because, as suggested on behalf of the appellant, a 'year' and 'twelve months' are for all practical purposes one and the same thing. A year, twelve months, fifty-two weeks and three hundred and sixty-five days all denote the same total period of time. If the statute had simply provided that the day' from which any specified number of days' is reckoned shall be excluded from the reckoning, it could hardly be contended that because there are three hundred and sixtyfive days in a year, therefore the legislature intended to apply the same rule of computation to years as to days. But there would be quite as much force in such a contention as there is in the argument that because a year is composed of months the same rule must apply to both. It is to be observed, moreover, that the question under consideration has to do, not with a single year, but with years. The appellant's argument, carried to its logical conclusion, amounts to this: A year consists of twelve months; therefore, the rule as applied to months holds good for any period of years. It may be admitted, for the purposes of this discussion, that a divided or double rule of computation has its inconveniences and difficulties; so has every other. All rules for computing time are purely arbitrary. If it were not for the terms of the statute and the rights which have become fixed by virtue thereof, one rule would, perhaps, be as good as another. So much for the statute as it now exists." The court then reviewed the history of the statute and came to the conclusion above indicated. 66 The foregoing decision was followed in Benoit v. N. Y. Central, etc., R.,Co., (1904) 94 App. Div. 24. It was also followed in Hendrickson v. Callan, (1911) 70 Misc. 342, 128 N. Y. S. 980, reversed on other grounds 147 App. Div. 480, 131 N. Y. S. 839, affirmed (1913) 210 N. Y. 543 mem. "It is claimed by the plaintiff that this case may be distinguished in that 'years were there involved; and because the statute specifically defines the period of a year to include 365 days," said the court. This, however, was the condition of affairs at the time of the decision in the Aultman case. The statute now reads (§ 58): The term year in a statute, contract, or any public or private instrument, means three hundred and sixty-five days, but the added day of a leap year and the day immediately preceding shall for the purpose of such computation be counted as one day.' It may be questioned if the purpose of this definition of a year as including 365 days was for any other purpose than to indicate the method of computing that period in the case of a leap year. Referring back to section 20, as it now stands, it is noteworthy that the language there employed is 'a number of days specified as a period,' etc.; again, 'In computing any specified number of days.' the words 'within one year' can hardly be deemed within this language." It was held in Connecticut Nat. Bank v. Bayles, (1897) 17 App. Div. 596, 45 N. Y. S. 305, that an action begun January 27, 1896, upon a judgment recovered in the Supreme Court on January 27, 1876, docketed in the afternoon of the same day, was not barred by the twenty-years statute of limitations, under the rule excluding from the computation the day of entry of the judgment; but this decision was reversed by the Court of Appeals in (1900) 163 N. Y. 561, 57 N. E. 1107, upon the opinion of Werner, J., in Aultman, etc., Co. v. Symes, (1900) 163 N. Y. 54, 57 N. E. 168, 79 A. S. R. 565, supra. In Davison v. Budlong, (1886) 40 Hun 245, a summons was L. 1909, ch. 27 Meaning of Terms 8 20 served on September 18, 1884, in an action on a note which fell due on September 18, 1878, and the action was held to be within the statute. Applicability of section to publication of legal notices.- In Cortland Sav. Bank v. Lighthall, (1907) 53 Misc. 423, 104 N. Y. S. 1022, it was held that section 27 of the Statutory Construction Law was not intended to conflict with section 787 of the Code of Civil Procedure, providing that "the period of publication of a legal notice, in an action or special proceeding, brought in a court, either of record or not of record, or before a judge of such a court, must be computed so as to exclude the first day of publication, and include the day on which the act or event of which notice is given is to happen, or which completes the full period of publication." Specified time before certain event. When an act is required to be done a certain number of days before the day of a specified event, the day to be excluded in making the reckoning is the day of the specified event, from which the days, weeks or months are to be counted, and in making the count back from that time the day on which the required act is to be performed may be included. Thus, it has been held that fourteen days before March sixteenth should be computed by excluding the sixteenth and including the first day, that is, the second day of March. People v. Burgess, (1897) 153 N. Y. 561, 47 N. E. 889. Similarly, under section 162 of the Election Law, providing that a voter must be “for the last thirty days a resident of the election district in which he offers his vote," it has been held that, while the day of election may be included, the day of taking up of residence becomes the commencement of a period from a certain day after which an act is authorized to be done, and in reckoning the days of the period this day from which the reckoning is made must be excluded. Op. Atty.-Gen. (1904) 452. On the same principle, where the day from which the filing of a certificate of nomination is to be reckoned is the day of the election, such day cannot be included within the number of days. Op. Atty.-Gen. (1898) 77; Op. Atty.Gen. (1899) 161. See ELECTION LAW, §§ 89, 121, 128. Similarly, in Matter of Lynbrook, (1911) 142 App. Div. 487, 127 N. Y. S. 82, under the provisions of the Village Law, relating to the incorporation of villages, and requiring notices of an election to pass upon the question of incorporation to be posted at least fifteen days prior thereto, it was held that a posting of notices on the second day of the month for such election to be held on the sixteenth wis insufficient as being only fourteen days' notice. And where a petition for highway improvements was filed on March 17, 1909, at 8.30 P. M., and the town meeting was held on April 6, 1909, it was decided that, excluding the day of the town election, the last day upon which the petition could have been filed was on the 16th, and was therefore one day too late, as not having been filed at least twenty days before the town meeting. Op. Atty.-Gen. (1909) 636. Specified time after event.— The general rule is that the day of the event is excluded and the last day of the period included. Thus, in Kane v. Brooklyn, (1889) 114 N. Y. 586, 21 N. E. 1053, it was held that a statute requiring a tax sale to be at a time “not less than thirty days after the first publication," was complied with where the notice of sale was dated March 15 and the day of sale specified was April 14. The court said: "As said in Dutcher v. Wright, (94 U. S. 553, 560) search has been made in vain for a decided case in which it is held that both the day of the act and the day of the event shall be included in the computation, in order to ascertain the specified period of time." But in Marvin v. Marvin, (1878) 75 N. Y. 240, it was held that under a statute declaring that judgments on the decisions of the court might be entered "after the expiration of four days from the filing of the decision, and the service upon the attorney of the adverse party of a copy thereof but not before," it was necessary that four full calendar days should elapse after the filing of a decision and notice thereof before judgment could |