FROM

Definition

A preposition used in legal instruments, statutes, contracts, and procedural rules to mark a point of departure — whether in space, time, or sequence. Its legal significance lies almost entirely in the question of inclusion or exclusion: does the point designated by "from" fall inside or outside the measured interval? Two primary legal contexts arise: (1) FROM as a spatial marker. In grants, charters, railroad right-of-way descriptions, and similar instruments, "from" designates a geographic starting point. Courts have read this word broadly, holding that "from" a named street or city does not necessarily mean from the nearest or innermost boundary of that location. Where a railroad was authorized to run "from" a city, courts held the line could originate at any point within the city's limits. (2) FROM as a temporal marker. In computing deadlines, limitation periods, notice requirements, and contractual performance dates, "from" introduces a terminus a quo — the anchor date against which a period is measured. Whether that anchor date itself is counted is the central recurring dispute. The dominant common-law rule excludes the named day: "from" January 1 means the count begins on January 2. This exclusionary reading is the default in most American jurisdictions when computing time under statutes and court rules, but contractual usage can override it where intent is clear.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Used to indicate source, provenance, or a starting point — in time, space, or on a scale. Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "Out of the neighborhood of; lessening or losing proximity to; leaving behind… used whenever departure, setting out, commencement of action… are to be expressed." The common meaning of "from" is descriptive and directional. The legal meaning adds a precise, contested binary: is the named point included in the measured interval or not? Ordinary speakers do not parse "from Monday" as a question of whether Monday itself counts. Lawyers and courts have spent centuries doing exactly that.

Common Confusion

"From" and "after" are frequently treated as interchangeable in drafting but carry different presumptive legal weights. "After" more clearly signals exclusion of the reference date. "From and after" — a common redundant phrase in older instruments — was used precisely to eliminate ambiguity, though courts have not always agreed it succeeded. Anderson's Dictionary of Law cross-references AFTER, AT, and TO as the terms most likely to intersect and conflict with FROM in construction disputes. Researchers encountering time-computation provisions should check how the governing jurisdiction treats each of these terms independently.

Why It Matters in Research

This is a term that generates litigation disproportionate to its size. Three research traps are worth flagging: First, the inclusion/exclusion question has no universal answer in historical sources. Bouvier acknowledges "a great diversity of construction" and notes that attempts to state a general rule have repeatedly failed. A researcher relying on a single case or a single treatise statement risks overgeneralizing. The rule that applies in one jurisdiction for statutory deadlines may not apply in that same jurisdiction for contract performance dates. Second, modern procedural rules have largely displaced the common-law debate for litigation deadlines. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 6(a) and analogous state rules specify exactly how to compute time periods, typically excluding the trigger date. Researchers working with pre-rules-era cases — particularly pre-1938 federal practice or early state codes — should not assume modern computational defaults. Third, the spatial meaning of "from" in grants and easements remains a live issue in property and land-use research. Historical deeds and railroad charters using "from" a named town or street may require locating nineteenth-century case law interpreting that specific instrument class, because the modern rule of broad construction was not uniformly applied in equity courts versus common-law courts. Corpus researchers should note that FROM entries in historical dictionaries are often brief or absent — because the word was treated as so fundamental that full treatment was deferred or scattered. Bouvier provides the most sustained treatment of any dictionary on the shelf, but even Bouvier's entry trails off mid-sentence in some editions, reflecting the genuine doctrinal instability of the term.

Historical Dictionary Support

Anderson's Dictionary of Law provides the most compressed and useful synthesis: FROM is taken inclusively or exclusively "according to the subject-matter," and the temporal default is exclusion of the named day. This matches the weight of American authority. Bouvier goes further, acknowledging that the "legal effect of this word has been a fruitful subject of judicial discussion resulting in a great diversity of construction." Bouvier treats spatial and temporal applications separately and notes genuine splits — some courts including the terminus a quo, some excluding it, with outcomes driven by the specific instrument and evident intent of the parties. Bouvier's candor about doctrinal inconsistency is more useful to researchers than a false statement of uniformity. Rapalje & Lawrence do not appear to carry a substantive entry for FROM in the excerpted material. This is consistent with the historical pattern of the major dictionaries — the word was often indexed minimally, with doctrine scattered across entries for COMPUTATION OF TIME, DAY, NOTICE, and LIMITATION. None of the historical dictionaries adequately captures the modern procedural-rules displacement of the common-law debate. Researchers should treat historical dictionary statements as reflecting pre-code practice.

Jurisdictional Note

For litigation deadlines, federal and state procedural rules now govern and generally exclude the trigger date. For contracts, the exclusionary default applies absent contrary evidence of intent. For property descriptions and grants, broad construction (inclusive of the named terminus) is more common in American courts than in English common law. Researchers working across jurisdictions should verify local computational rules before relying on any general statement.

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