Month - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition month

Definition :

Month [fr. monath, Sax., moon, which was formerly written mone, as month was written moneth]. The period in which that planet moneth, i.e., completeth its orbit.

It is either--(1) Lunar, the time between the change and change, or the time in which the moon returns to the same point, being twenty-eight days.

(2) Solar, that period in which the sun passes through one of the twelve signs of the zodiac.

(3) Calendar, by which we reckon time, consisting unequally of thirty or thirty-one days, except February, which consists of twenty-eight, and in leap year of twenty nine days. The calendar month is also nine days. The calendar month is also called usual, natural, civil, political.

In an Act of Parliament (English), passed after 1850, the word 'month,' which was formerly taken to mean a lunar month, unless calendar month was specified, means calendar month; unless words be added pointing to lunar months [(English) Interpretation Act, 1889 (s. 3), repealing and re-enacting 13 Vict. c. 21]. By the Common Law and inequity it is but twenty-eight days; see 2 Bl. Com. 141. In ecclesiastical matters it means a calendar month. By R.S.C. 1883, Ord. LXIV., r. 1, where the time for doing any act or taking any proceeding is limited by months, not expressed to be lunar months, such time is to be computed by calendar months.

By the rule of the commercial world a month is deemed to be a calendar month; and this rule is applied to bills of exchange and promissory notes by s. 14, sub-s. 4, of the (English) Bills of Exchange Act, 1882 (45 & 46 Vict. c. 61); but in legal documents which came into operation before 1926, the primary meaning of month is lunar month, and there is no general exception making it mean calendar month in commercial documents; it can only bear that meaning where, according to the ordinary rules of construction of documents, a secondary meaning can be admitted, see Burner v. Moore, (1904) 1 Ch 305, and P. Phipps & Co. v. Rogers, (1925) 1 KB 14.

S. 61 of the (English) Law of Property Act, 1925, enacts that in all deeds, contracts, wills, orders and other instruments executed, made or coming into operation after 1925, 'month' means calendar month unless the context otherwise requires.

As to how a calendar month is to be computed, see Radcliff v. Bartholomew, (1892) 1 QB 161.

Month shall mean a month reckoned according to the British calendar. [General Clauses Act, 1897 (10 of 1897), s. 3(35)]

Month, in its ordinary accepted sense, the expression 'month' means a 'calendar month running from any arbitrary date, the period expires with the day, in the succeeding month immediately preceding the day corresponding to the date upon which the period to starts save that if the period starts at end of a calendar month which contains more days than the next succeeding month, the period expires at end of latter month, Daryadh Singh v. Union of India, 1973 Del 58: (1973) 75 PLR Del 18.

Means a calendar month. Even when lunar months are mentioned in a vernacular contract, the time for the purpose of limitation is to be decided with reference to calendar month, Harbhagat v. Narain Rao, 1924 Nag 208.