Grosvenor v. Magill & Latham

Citations

• 37 Ill. 239

Syllabus

<p>1. Time—fraction of a day. While, for many purposes the law knows no division of a day, yet whenever it becomes important to the ends of justice, or in order to decide upon conflicting interests, the law will look into the fractions of a day as readily as into the fractions of any other unit of time.</p> <p>2. Same. When parties contract for the performance of an act during the first half of any month containing thirty-one days, they contract that it shall be performed by noon of the sixteenth day.</p> <p>3. Pleading—proof under bad declaration. A bad declaration does not necessarily entitle a party to recover on insufficient evidence.</p> <p>4. Same. Where it is incumbent on the plaintiff to aver, in his declaration, performance of certain terms in a contract, and he avers a performance in terms susceptible of an equivocal construction, the defendant may demur, but he is not obliged to do so. He may plead the general issue, treating the averment of performance as such an averment as the nature of the contract required the plaintiff to make, and on the trial, may insist that the plaintifi shall prove such performance as the contract required.</p>