therefore late. The court had regard to a long line of established authority that the
courts do not deal in fractions of a day 13 .
Applying the established principles to the present case, and unless the Sub-
Contract provided otherwise, a payment application required to be made so as to
be received by FK no later than 21 st October 2022 could be made so as to be received at any time on 21 st October 2022, up to 23.59.59, “ because the law does not count in fractions of a day ” . The Sub-C ontract could have but did not provide for ‘clear’ days or for an application to be received within certain hours. The Specification provision as to the hours the site was open for work could not be read as importing a restriction on the time by which an application had to be received. “Put simply, the site opening times within the Specification have nothing to do with the proper construction of the word 'days' within the payment and notice provisions required for compliance with the HCGRA”.
Payment Application No 16 was made so as to be received on 21 st October 2022,
which was not later than 4 days prior to the Interim Valuation date, and was
therefore validly made. There was no error by the adjudicator in this respect, and
the award should be enforced and the Part 8 Claim dismissed.
About the author: Kenneth Salmon MCIArb is a qualified solicitor in England, Wales
and Eire. He is a Ciarb qualified and CMC accredited Mediator and Chair of
Education at Ciarb North West Branch. Kenneth is a construction specialist
currently working as a consultant to Slater Heelis Limited. He has extensive
experience of all forms of dispute resolution including arbitration, adjudication,
expert determination and mediation He is the author of Cases on the Enforcement
of Construction Adjudication Awards (2012) and the series Cases (on adjudication
13 Lester v Garland (1808) 15 Ves 248; Boxxe v Secretary of State for Justice [2023] EWHC 533 (TCC).
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