Definition
A Latin phrase meaning "not judicial" or "not legal." In practice, the term is almost always encountered in its fuller form, *dies non juridicus* — a day that is not a juridical day, meaning a day on which courts do not sit and legal proceedings cannot lawfully be conducted. Such days include Sundays, recognized court holidays, and other days formally excluded from the judicial calendar by rule or statute.
*Non juridicus* standing alone functions as an adjective describing anything lacking judicial character or legal standing. Its primary utility in legal research is as the modifier in *dies non juridicus* and the shortened form *dies non*.
Common Confusion
*Dies non juridicus*, *dies non*, and *non juridicus* are often used interchangeably in historical sources, which can create apparent inconsistency. *Dies non juridicus* is the full Latin phrase; *dies non* is the accepted abbreviation and the form most commonly found in procedural rules and modern legal writing. *Non juridicus* alone rarely appears without *dies* and should generally be read as shorthand for the full phrase. Researchers encountering *non juridicus* in isolation in older materials should treat it as referring to the day-counting concept, not to a distinct legal category.
Why It Matters in Research
The practical consequence of a *dies non* determination is procedural: deadlines falling on such a day are typically extended to the next juridical day. This rule has significant implications for statutes of limitations, filing deadlines, and notice requirements, and it has generated a body of case law interpreting what counts as a non-juridical day in any given jurisdiction.
In historical sources, the category of *dies non juridicus* was broader than it is today. The common law recognized various religious feast days, term recesses, and harvest periods as non-juridical, many of which have no modern equivalent. Researchers working with pre-20th century materials — particularly English common law sources and early American practice — should not assume that a historical list of *dies non* maps onto any contemporary court calendar.
The Bouvier and Rapalje entries are cross-references only, directing the reader to *dies non* rather than treating *non juridicus* as a freestanding entry. This reflects the dictionary consensus that the term is best understood as a component of that compound phrase, not as an independent concept. Black's (both editions) supply the only working definitions.
Corpus researchers should be alert to spelling variants in historical documents: *dies non juridicus*, *dies non-juridicus*, and *dies non* all appear, sometimes within the same jurisdiction's reports. The phrase is also sometimes rendered in English as "not a court day" or "a day not of record" in early American practice materials.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries are in complete agreement on substance but offer little depth. Black's (1st and 2nd editions) give identical functional definitions, with the 2nd edition containing an apparent typographical error ("Dtes" for "Dies") that serves as a useful reminder that transcription errors in historical legal materials are common and worth flagging. Rapalje & Lawrence provides no independent definition, directing the reader elsewhere. Bouvier does the same, pointing to *dies non* as the primary entry.
The uniformity across sources reflects the term's narrow, well-settled function: it is a Latin descriptor for a category of day, not a contested doctrine. None of the historical dictionaries address the procedural consequences of a *dies non* in detail — those consequences are developed in rules of court, statutes of limitations jurisprudence, and procedural treatises rather than in definitional sources.
Jurisdictional Note
What constitutes a *dies non juridicus* is determined by each jurisdiction's statutes, court rules, and, in federal courts, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and applicable local rules. Jurisdictions differ on whether court closures due to emergency (weather, public health orders) are treated as *dies non* for deadline purposes; this has been a point of active litigation and rule amendment in recent decades.