Date Format: A Rare Headache in the Construction of Contractual Documents

Description

ABSTRACT

Date Format: A Rare Headache in the Construction of Contractual Documents

Mujib Jimoh*

When parties enter into a contract and it is evidenced in a written document, parties focus more on other contractual terms and pay little attention to the date format on the contract. Dates on contractual documents are as important as other terms of the contract. Construing dates on documents and other documents associated with a contract may prove very difficult if parties do not realise that there are different date formats. An email which directs a party to carry out a contractual obligation may be dated 03/05/2008. This date is subject to different interpretations and liability may be created for a party if a particular interpretation is adopted, rather than the other. This situation played out in the Nigerian case of Hassan Taiwo v Stanbic IBTC. This Article examines the date formats in different jurisdictions; effects of indiscriminate use of date on contracts and the approaches to be adopted in construing dates on contractual documents.

Keywords: Date Format, Contract Document, Contractual Obligation, Interpretation.

INTRODUCTION
If I were living in Massachusetts,₁ and a contractual document is dated 06/05/09,₂ what would it mean to me? Would it mean the same thing to a person living at Yaba₃ or a resident of Sofia?₄

In Sam Selvon’s Lonely Londoners,₅ Selvon talks about a character named ‘Big City’:

Big City come from an orphanage in one of the country district in Trinidad. When he was a little fellar, he hear some people talking about the music the norphanage band does play. But instead of hearing ‘music’ Big City thought he hear ‘fusic’ and since that time nobody could ever get him to say music.

‘Listen to that shape piece of fusic by Mantovanee, Moses’
‘Man Big City, the word is ‘music’ not ‘fusic’
‘Ah, you only trying to tie me up. You think I don’t know English?₆

Just like Big City who hears fusic, one could interpret the date above as 6 May 2009.7

* Mujib Jimoh, LL.B; BL (Hons), Corporate, Securities & Finance Associate at Banwo & Ighodalo, Lagos, Nigeria. Email:

mj****@ba************.com











;

mu********@ya***.com











; +2347031085118.

1. The United States uses the date format – mm/dd/yyyy. So, the date would be interpreted as June 5, 2009.
2. This is a hypothetical date used throughout this Article to highlight the points made.
3. Yaba is an area in Lagos, Nigeria. Nigeria uses the date format – dd/mm/yyyy. Thus, the date would be interpreted as 6 May 2009.
4. Sofia is the capital of Bulgaria. Bulgaria uses the date format – yyyy/mm/dd. Therefore, the date would be interpreted as 9 May 2006.
5. Sam Selvon, The Lonely Londoners (Longman Drumbeat 1956) 77 – 78.
6. The Lonely Londoners is written in creolized English. So, the grammatical errors in the novel are deliberate.
7. This is known as the European Style date format. It is represented as dd/mm/yyyy. See (n 3).
   

THE GRAVITAS REVIEW OF BUSINESS & PROPERTY LAW VOL.11 NO.3