96 "From" is a term of exclusion,95 and the words "to," "till" or "until," inclusive. Not that they import this in all connections, but in their use to indicate the beginning and ending of spaces of time. If a given number of days is required to elapse between one act and another, the day of the first is excluded, and the day of the other included. An intention to exclude both days may be inferred from language clearly expressing that intent; 97 as where a statute or rule of court requires a certain number of clear days, or as has been held when "at least" a given number of days is required.99 93 The rule is so generally recognized to exclude the first, or terminus a quo, and to include the last, or terminus ad quem, that it requires no particular words for its application.1 The terminus a quo, so far as it is descriptive of a period of time, is coincident with the day, or day of the act, from which the computation is to be made; that day is indivisible; the period to be computed is another and subsequent period, which begins when the first period is completed. Whitman, 8 Cal. 412, 417; O'Connor v. Towns, 1 Tex. 107; State v. Mounts, 36 W. Va. 179, 14 S. E. 407, 15 L. R. A. 243. 95 Peables v. Hannaford, 18 Me. 106. 96 Thomas v. Douglass, 2 John. Cas. 226: Bunce v. Reed, 16 Barb. 347; Dakins v. Wagner, 3 Dowl. P. C. 535; Webster v. French, 12 Ill. 302. See People v. Walker, 17 N. Y. 502. 97 Dousman v. O'Malley, 1 Doug. (Mich.) 450; Sallee. v. Ireland, 9 Mich. 154; Cook v. Gray, 6 Ind. 335; Robinson, Adm'r, v. Foster, 12 Iowa, 186; Isabelle v. Iron Cliffs Co., 57 Mich. 120; Powers' Appeal, 29 Mich. 504. 99 Zouch v. Empsey, 4 Barn. & Ald. 522; The Queen v. The Justices, etc., 8 Ad. & El. 932; In re Prangley, 4 Ad. & El. 781; O'Connor v. Towns, 1 Tex. 107; Walsh, Trustee, v. Boyle, 30 Md. 266; Small v. Edrick, 5 Wend. 137. See Columbia Tea Co. v. Haywood, 10 Wend. 423; Stebbins v. Anthony, 5 Colo. 348, 360; Young v. Higgon, 6 M. & W. 49. 1 A rule made June 6th to plead in four days gives the party all of the 10th for that purpose. Clark v. Ewing, 87 Ill. 244; Pepperell v. Burrell, 2 Dowl. P. C. 674. “By the January 20" includes that day, Higley v. Gilmer, 3 Mont. 433, and until the office opens the next 98 King v. Herefordshire, 3 Barn. morning. Oxley v. Bridge, 1 Doug. & Ald. 581. 67. The last day of that period is an indivisible point of time — the terminus ad quem. When that point is reached the period is complete. Dies inceptus pro completo habitur.? § 186 (113). Where a summons or notice is required to be served or given a specified number of days for a sale, to require appearance, or of a proceeding to take place at a precise time, the day of service is excluded; the sale or proceeding may be on the last of the required number of days, and the appearance must be on or before that day.3 The same rule applies where a period is defined to be computed from a given act or date where within such period a right, power or authority may be exercised, or beyond which such right, power or authority may immediately attach and have force. The right to appear and plead is a right so limited and defined in point of time; if not claimed and exercised within the period given therefor there is a default; this is complete on the expiration of that period, and the right of the other party to proceed thereon attaches at once on the expiration of that period. At the same point of time one right expires and another becomes operative. § 187 (114). The right of appeal is one to be exercised within a determinate period. That period is computed from 2 Mercer v. Ogilvy, 3 Paton, 434, Seekonk v. Rehoboth, 8 Cush. 371: 442. 3 Kerr v. Haverstick, 94 Ind. 180; Vandenburgh v. Van Rensselaer, 6 Paige, 147; Irving v. Humphreys, Hopk. 364; White v. German Ins. Co., 15 Neb. 660, 20 N. W. 30; Monroe v. Paddock, 75 Ind. 422; Wash v. Boyle, 30 Md. 262; Bowman v. Wood, 41 Ill. 203; Vairin v. Edmonson, 5 Gilm. 270; Forsyth v. Warren, 62 Ill. 68; Hall v. Cassidy, 25 Miss. 48; Columbia T. Co. v. Haywood, 10 Wend. 423; Bacon v. Kennedy, 56 Mich. 329, 22 N. W. 824; Dexter v. Cranston, 41 Mich. 448; Doyle v. Mizner, 41 Mich. 549; Bemis v. Leonard, 118 Mass. 502; Towell v. Hollweg, 81 Ind. 154; Cock v. Bunn, 6 John. 326; Hoffman v. Duel, 5 id. 232; Gillespie v. White, 16 id. 117: Cressey v. Parks, 75 Me. 387; Hart's Adm'r v. Walker, 31 Mo. 26; Rex v. Justices, 4 Nev. & Man. 370; City Coun cil v. Adams, 51 Ala. 449; Brady v. Moulton, 61 Minn. 185, 63 N. W. 489; Arnold v. Nye, 23 Mich. 286; People v. Barry, 93 Mich. 542, 53 N. W. 785, 18 L. R. A. 337; Mathewson v. Ham, 21 R. I. 203, 42 Atl. 871. the date of the judgment. The day of the judgment is excluded in the computation. The right of redemption is another to be exercised within a certain time, and it is computed after a sale. The day of sale is excluded from the computation. The redemption period expires with the last day, and it is only after its expiration that the sale can be treated as absolute." Rights of action may be asserted during the period defined in the statutes of limitation. The rule would philosophically include in the period of limitation every day in which an action could be brought, as the rights of appeal and redemption include every day in which those rights could be exercised. The right to sue commences at once after the maturity of the debt, or right of action. The day on which it matures is excluded for the same reason that the day of sale is excluded in reckoning the time of redemption, or the day on which the judgment is rendered in computing the time for appeal. The sale or rendition of judgment are acts which do not occupy the whole day; but fractions not being regarded, they are treated the same as though they took place in every part of the day, or the day as having no magnitude, as a mere point of time." 4 Carothers v. Wheeler, 1 Ore. 194; Smith v. Cassity, 9 B. Mon. 192, 48 Am. Dec. 420 (overruled in Chiles v. Smith's Heirs, 13 B. Mon. 460); Ex parte Dean, 2 Cow. 605, 14 Am. Dec. 521. And see Commercial Bank v. Ives, 2 Hill, 355. 5 Gorham v. Wing, 10 Mich. 486; White v. Haworth, 21 Mo. App. 439. 6 People v. The Sheriff of Broome, 19 Wend. 87; Bigelow v. Willson, 1 Pick. 485; Cromilien v. Brink, 29 Pa. St. 522. In this case the court say: "A day is always an indivisible point of time except where it must be cut up to prevent injustice. In the sense of these statutes it has neither length nor breadth, but simply position without magnitude. If the time of redemption were fixed at one day after the sale, that day could not be the day of the sale; for it might be made at the last moment of the day, and the owner, being thus prevented from tendering on that day, would lose his right. The time mentioned must therefore be the fol lowing day. So of one year, or of two years." Edmundson v. Wragg, 104 Pa. St. 500. In Presbrey v. Williams, 15 Mass. 192, the court say: "By the statute of limitations it was intended that the plaintiff should have full six years, and no more, § 188 (115). When Sundays are included or excluded.For secular purposes Sundays are dies non utiles. In many constitutions they are excepted from the time allowed the executive for action upon a bill which is delivered to him within which to bring his action. In this case he might have brought his action on the 1st of November, as upon a new promise then made (supposing that the action had been previously barred by the statute), and if he may also commence it on the 1st day of November, 1817, it would make seven first days of November in the six years prescribed by the statute." The facts of this case and that of Menges v. Frick, 73 Pa. St. 137, are not such as to fairly illustrate the rule, for in both cases the right of action matured on the day included in the former and excluded in the latter in computing the period of limitations. It is said that the new promise reviving a barred debt was made on November 1, 1810, and might have been sued on that day. The new promise, like the rendition of a judgment or sale, though an act occupying but a moment, may be the first or last moment of the twenty-four hours. As a fact from which time is reckoned they occupy the day-the day is but a point of time. In reckoning a period from that act, it is considered in law that there is not a moment of the day of such act subsequent to it. The act and the day are identical in time-space-a mere point. We may suppose a new promise made which revives a debt and an action brought on it the same day; so we may suppose a redemption from a sale on the day of the two years sale, or an appeal from a judgment on the day when it was rendered. Then to protect the right of suit, redemption or appeal, a court would disregard the fiction that there are no fractions of a day and ascertain if the action was brought after the right accrued, and so in the other cases whether the right exercised existed. See ante, § 179. Paul v. Stone, 112 Mass. 27, confirms this view. The statute barred an action against an administrator unless commenced within "from the time of his giving bond." The court adopt the language of Wilde, J., in Bigelow v. Willson, 1 Pick. 485, that "the words 'time of executing the deed,' used in the statute, mean, in legal acceptation, the day of delivery, which is the same as 'the date' or 'the day of the date."" The following cases are to the same effect: Steamboat Mary Blane v. Beehler, 12 Mo. 477; Viti v. Dixon, id. 479; Blackman v. Nearing, 43 Conn. 56, 21 Am. Rep. 634; Cornell v. Moulton, 3 Denio, 12. The case of McGraw v. Walker, 2 Hilt. 404, is not like the others. There a note was payable on the 1st day of October and therefore became due on the 4th. At the expiration of that day an action accrued and suit could have been brought on the 5th. The statute commenced running on and including that day - and hence expired with the 4th of October in the sixth year thereafter - unless after its passage by the two branches of the legislature. Where that is the case, Sundays are excluded from the computation. Thus, under such a provision in the federal constitution allowing ten days, excepting Sundays, an act so the language of the statute of limitations excludes the first day upon which an action could be brought. It requires an action to be brought within the prescribed period "after the cause of action accrued." The inquiry narrowly is, Does a party have the prescribed period and an additional day to bring his action? It is the writer's opinion that the first day when he can bring suit is the first day after the accrual of the action and part of the prescribed period of limita tion. If the computation must be made backwards from a day or proceeding, it is still a period to be ascer tained by excluding one day and including another. Though the day from which the computation has to be made is the same sort dies a quo, in the reckoning, it is yet the expiration of the period. The same rule of computation ap plies; such periods are not construed to be periods of clear days; one terminus is included and the other excluded. While it would seem more philosophical, and preserve a symmetry in the application of the rule which excludes the terminus a quo, as in Hagerman v. Ohio Building, etc. Co., 25 Ohio St. 186, still the result is the same, when the terms are transposed. Northrop v. Cooper, 23 Kan. 432. In a very learned and elaborate opinion in Stebbins v. Anthony, 5 Colo. 348, Beck, J., remarks that "The rule of the common law, and the rule generally adopted by the courts of the several states, is to include one day and to exclude the other, some courts including the first day in the specified time in the computation, and excluding the last day. Some courts exclude the first day, and include the last, while other courts vary their prac tice according to the phraseology of the statute under consideration, in some instances including the last day, and in others including both days." He concludes that the rule sustained by the general current of modern authority is that "where a statute requires an act to be performed a certain number of days prior to a day named, or within a definite period after a day or event specified; or where time is to be,computed either prior to a day named or subsequent to a day named, the usual rule of computation is to exclude one day of the designated period and to include the other." Bowman v. Wood, 41 IIL 203; Vairin v. Edmonson, 5 Gilm. 270; Forsyth v. Warren, 62 Ill. 68; Smith v. Rowles, 85 Ind. 264; Rhoades v. Delaney, 50 Ind. 253; Loughridge v. Huntington, 56 Ind. 253; Meredith v. Chancey, 59 Ind. 466; Fox v. Allensville, 46 Ind. 31; Hill v. Pressley, 96 Ind. 447; Swett v. Sprague, 55 Me. 190; Gantz v. Toles, 40 Mich. 725; Dexter v. Shepard, 117 Mass. 480; Frothingham v. March, 1 Mass. 247; Early v. Doe ex |