Definition
The first day of the week. In American law, Sunday has significance primarily as a day on which certain legal acts — particularly the service of process, execution of contracts, and commercial transactions — were historically prohibited or rendered voidable under Sunday laws (also called Sabbath laws or blue laws). The legal significance of Sunday derives not from religious observance per se but from the statutory frameworks that attached civil consequences to conduct occurring on that day.
Two distinct questions arise in legal research: (1) what acts are prohibited or restricted on Sunday by statute, and (2) how is Sunday computed for purposes of filing deadlines, limitations periods, and procedural rules. On the second question, most jurisdictions exclude Sunday from deadline calculations, such that when a filing deadline falls on Sunday it is extended to the following Monday.
The boundaries of Sunday itself have been disputed. Bouvier notes that in some New England states Sunday began at sunset on Saturday and ended at sunset the following day, tracking the ecclesiastical calendar. In other American jurisdictions, Sunday ran from midnight Saturday to midnight Sunday. This distinction affected whether contracts made on Saturday evening fell within Sunday prohibitions.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To spend Sunday at a certain place or with certain people.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The first day of the week, consecrated among Christians to rest from secular employments and to religious worship; the Christian Sabbath; the Lord's Day.
The common meaning presents no conceptual gap — Sunday is Sunday — but the legal meaning is built on top of the common one through statutory overlay. What matters legally is not the day's religious character but the civil consequences attached to it: whether a contract made on Sunday is enforceable, whether process served on Sunday is valid, and how Sunday is counted (or excluded) in procedural time calculations. Researchers should not assume that the religious connotation drives legal outcomes; courts applying Sunday laws often did so as a matter of statutory construction, not theological reasoning.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Sunday Laws (Blue Laws): Statutes prohibiting or restricting specified commercial or civil activities on Sunday. The scope varied enormously by jurisdiction and era — some prohibited all contracts, others only particular trades. Many have been repealed or narrowed since the mid-twentieth century.
Sunday Process: Service of civil process on Sunday was prohibited at common law and by statute in many jurisdictions. Process served on Sunday was often void, not merely voidable, though exceptions existed for criminal matters and emergencies.
Sunday Contracts: Contracts made on Sunday were voidable or void under many Sunday statutes. Bouvier documents that a contract of sale was not saved from Sunday-contract status merely because payment occurred on Monday, and that a contract bearing a secular date could be shown to have been actually made on Sunday — though not against a bona fide holder without notice.
Judicial Sunday: Sunday was dies non juridicus at common law — a non-juridical day on which courts did not sit and legal proceedings did not run. This affected limitations computations and return days.
Why It Matters in Research
Sunday is a sleeper term in historical legal research. A researcher reading nineteenth-century contract disputes, commercial cases, or procedural records will encounter Sunday defenses with surprising frequency — the claim that a contract, deed, note, or service of process was void because it occurred on Sunday. The viability of that defense depended on local statute, not common law alone, and the statutes varied sharply.
The computation problem is perennial and remains active law. Modern procedural rules — federal and state — universally exclude Sunday from deadline calculations when the deadline falls on that day. Researchers working on limitations questions or procedural history must check whether Sunday exclusions applied under the version of the rules in force at the relevant time.
The boundary-of-Sunday problem (sunset vs. midnight) appears in older cases and can affect outcome. Do not assume midnight-to-midnight without checking the jurisdiction and era.
Sunday laws were a live constitutional battleground through the mid-twentieth century, challenged on Establishment Clause grounds. Many were upheld as civil regulations of commerce rather than religious legislation, but the landscape shifted significantly after the 1960s. Researchers tracing the enforceability of blue laws need to track both legislative repeal and constitutional litigation in the relevant jurisdiction.
The Rapalje & Lawrence entry for Sunday in the available source material is clearly a transcription error, reproducing text about summonses rather than Sunday. Researchers relying on that source for this entry will find it useless; Bouvier is the most substantive historical authority on the American law of Sunday.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's (both editions) offers only the bare identification: Sunday is the first day of the week, also called the Lord's Day and the Sabbath. No legal content beyond nomenclature.
Bouvier is the most useful historical source. It addresses the boundary question (sunset vs. midnight), the contract rules (Sunday contracts are not saved by Monday payment; bona fide holders without notice are protected), and the dating problem (a contract may be shown to bear an erroneous secular date, or to have been made on Sunday despite a secular date). Bouvier also provides the Latin maxims governing time computation — dies inceptus pro completo habetur (a day begun is held as complete) — which bear on Sunday calculation questions.
Anderson's and Rapalje & Lawrence add nothing substantive to Sunday specifically; the available excerpts are either misdirected or concern adjacent procedural matters.
Historical dictionaries universally understate the jurisdictional variability of Sunday laws, the constitutional litigation history, and the modern procedural dimension. They treat Sunday primarily as a common-law disability rather than as a shifting statutory landscape.
Jurisdictional Note
Sunday laws are almost entirely creatures of state statute. Federal law imposes no general Sunday restriction, though federal procedural rules exclude Sunday from deadline computation. State Sunday statutes ranged from comprehensive commercial prohibitions to narrow restrictions on particular trades; many have been substantially repealed. Researchers must consult the specific state's statutory history rather than generalizing from any single jurisdiction's rules.