What is the legal defintion/interpretation of the words "approximate"
and "approximately" when used to describe time e.g. approximately one
month.  Must cite court precedents regarding use/definition of the
word "approximately" in reference to quantities of time.

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Request for Question Clarification by pinkfreud-ga on 05 Sep 2004 17:48 PDT

Laws, and the decisions of courts, vary from one jurisdiction to
another. Do you have a particular location in mind?

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Request for Question Clarification by expertlaw-ga on 05 Sep 2004 18:38 PDT

Dear linkage71,

In addition to the jurisdictional issue raised by researcher
pinkfreud, the answer to your question may be affected by past
practice between the parties (if there have been prior dealings under
similar terms), as well as by the industry at issue (as sometimes
courts turn to "industry standards" when interpreting such terms.)

The researcher who works on this question may also benefit from an
example of the context in which the term is used (e.g., "The parties
anticipate that this matter will be concluded approximately one month
after this agreement is executed by both parties.")

Finally, if there were any discussions between the parties as to what
"approximately one month" meant, those may also be relevant to how a
court will interpret the language.

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Clarification of Question by linkage71-ga on 05 Sep 2004 22:24 PDT

The jurisdiction is for Wisconsin.  The venue is Family Court.  The
question is a result of an agreement between two ex-spouses to jointly
move from Wisconsin to Cabot Arkansas.

The specific item reads: "That both parties have agreed to move to
Cabot, Arkansas, herein known as residence, in approximately one
month; that both parties agree that Tara xxxxxx will pay for one
rental truck sufficient to move both parties and gas expenses for the
move to Arkansas"

The agreement is dated August 16th, 2004.  I am trying to establish
what dates a court would recognize as "approximately".  One of the
parties rented a truck and moved on Sept. 4th, 2004 (without the other
party because it was felt to be to early based on the agreement).

There were discussions on what "approximately" one month meant, but
one party (the one who left the state) denies this now.

Without a definition of "approximately" in the agreement the court
would probably revert to its general meaning as used in a dictionary. 
In this case, "approximately a month" would mean a time just short of
a month or a time just over a month. How much much time either way? 
Say two weeks, because any longer (or shorter)and you get to a "month
and a half" or  "half a month".

Dear linkage71,

I don't know if the answer provided above helped you. 

In general terms, as it resulted from a settlement or agreement
between the parties, in most states such an agreement regarding the
move would be interpreted in accord with the laws of contract. What
that means is that the court would first try to determine the meaning
of "approximately" from the plain language of the agreement. If that
is not possible, and as this is not the sort of agreement where there
is likely to be prior practice between the parties or "industry
standards", the court would likely look to additional evidence as
presented by the parties about their intentions in choosing that word.
(This type of evidence, extrinsic to the agreement and usually oral in
nature, is called "parol evidence".)

In your situation, it sounds like the court would be presented with
one side's testimony that there was an understanding based upon
discussions between the parties as to what "approximately" meant, and
the other side's testimony that there was not. The court would then
try to determine what was meant by "approximately", or if there was
never actually a "meeting of the minds" between the parties as to the
meaning of that term, and either find that the agreement was satisfied
or award appropriate relief.

There probably is not case law defining what "approximately" means in
this context, but there will be a great deal of case law detailing the
manner in which the court would make its determination, and how the
court would treat evidence or testimony about what the parties meant.
There may be case law discussing what "approximately" (or a similar
term) meant in other contexts, from which analogies could be drawn to
the present context - when dealing with a contested issue you rarely
find a case on an exact point, so that is typically how case law is
used by attorneys.

I would expect that the court will want to know from the party who was
supposed to pay for the move, "Why did it have to be right then? Why
couldn't you wait a couple of weeks?" The answer to that question may
have more of an impact on how the judge rules than the case law.