If someone signed a legal document and put a fake date on it, does that invalidate it?
Answer will depend on what the effect of the “legal document” is and on the signficance of the date of execution. In general a mistake in stating the date of execution of an instrument won’t fundamentally invalidate the instrument but has the potential to cause evidentiary difficulties in enforcing it, if you’re trying to enforce it in a context in which the date of execution actually matters.
What if you, say, declared a state holiday for April 31st?
Almost certainly ineffective, since it’s impossible to know whether the holiday was intended for April 30th, May 1st orthe 31st of some month that does actually have 31 days.
Whereas, say, a transaction document dated “31st April” and registered some time in early May is probably fine, unless it becomes of significance to know exactly when it was executed.
IANAL, but my understanding is - as we see when contracts make it to the courts for interpretation - intent matters. The thing the court would have to figure out, is what was the real intent? And what punishment should there be for misunderstanding the intent, and was it deliberate or an honest mistake? If I signed something saying I would vacate my rental by Thursday the 31st and didn’t leave at all, then I’m being deliberately obtuse. I obviously meant to vacate the property by Thursday the 1st or Wednesday the 30th. if I did neither, then I am acting in bad faith I assume.
I wonder if this would fall under the “duty to mitigate” provisions, or bad faith for not bringing the problem to the attention of the other party to the contract?
I’m guessing like so much in law, the word “reasonable” plays a huge part in the answer. What would a reasonable person due when given that circumstance?
OTOH, if it were criminal - “turn in your AR15’s by April 31st or else” then persumably a strict interpretation is necessary. The average citizen cannot be penalized for not guessing what a legislature really meant. The law must be exact. An incorrect law has no force.
In the case that I assume prompted this thread I believe the intention was the 24th (last Monday in April).
Isn’t it clear that the legislature meant “before May” in this scenario?
Isn’t there also a contractual principle that where there is ambiguity in a legal document then you are open to take whichever interpretation you favour. I wonder that would extend to ‘There is no April 31st, but there is one in May, so that’s our earnest attempt to meet the presumed intent, your Honour’? Or does this only apply when error can be excluded?
Any ambiguity is generally interpreted to favor the person who didn’t draft the language. Generally.
To the OP’s quesiton about signing a legal document. I would think you could put April 31 on a check and no one would notice. If you signed and dated your Will, April 31, 2023, It would be considered a typo of no consequence I think.
I read that Chris Patton who supervised handing Hong Kong back to the Chinese, wrote E&OE (Errors and Omissions Excepted) after his signature on the lengthy legal document that finalised the handover.
That’s why they make judges…
But my totally undeducated wild-ass guess is that a judge is not going to send you to jail for an ambiguous law with stupid wording that should never have been passed when there was plenty of opportunity to correct it. Whereas a person writing a cheque or something like that, it’s an honest mistake that maybe they only have aminute to realize before the thing is gone from their sight.
If the letter agreed “vacate premises by 31st of April” I don’t think the judge will accept “I assumed he meant the 12th of Never”. I suspect he would instead say “you had a duty to clarify” (duty to mitigate). Quite often judges will seek out the intent of a contract as much as the precise wording when there is a dispute. If you knew damn well you were supposed to be out by May 1, then “ha ha” is not an excuse.
Penal legislation - a law which creates a crime, or imposes a penalty - is always interpreted in favour of the defendant, on the grounds that when it comes to creating crimes, the state has a duty to be unambiguous so the citizen knows what is forbidden. If the state meant “before May” they could have said so.