The meaning of "day" in a payment application

Elements (Europe) Ltd v FK Building Ltd [2023] EWHC 726 (TCC)

In Elements (Europe) Ltd v FK Building Ltd [2023] EWHC 726 (TCC), Constable J held, in the context of the time frame within which a payment application must be received, that the word "days" in the JCT Standard Building Sub-Contract Conditions SBCSub/C 2016 edition did not mean "clear days" but meant a period of 24 hours reckoned from a definite or given point. Further, the claimant was held to have until 23.59.59 on the day in question in order to submit the payment application. The law of contract does not generally deal in fractions of a day and so, in the absence of words limiting the time of day at which the payment application could be submitted, the claimant had the whole of the day in which to make the application and, in so far as this conclusion was said to produce commercially unworkable results, that submission was rejected.