Keating v. Iozzo 508 N.E.2d 503 155 Ill.App.3d 774, 508 N.E.2d 503, 108 Ill.Dec. 342 (Cite as: 155 Ill.App.3d 774, 508 N.E.2d 503, 108 Ill.Dec. 342) must be filed are to remain open for the receipt of such petitions until 5 p.m. on the last day of the filing period. (Ill.Rev.Stat.1985, ch. 46, par. 1-4.) There is no comparable provision for the filing of objections. Thus, the Board was operating from a mistaken legal premise. *777 Since it based its decision on what it thought to be the law, the Board did not consider whether, under all the circumstances in evidence, respondent Iozzo's failure to file on February 2 rendered his objections untimely. After review of the record and the law, it is our opinion that the trial court correctly reversed the decision on this issue since the Board's unsupported conclusion was contrary to the manifest weight of the evidence. While the precise issue now before the court is one of first impression, there are numerous cases in which a party sought to extend a statutorily prescribed time period for performance of an act because the last day of the period fell on a Saturday, Sunday, or a holiday; the office where performance was to take place was closed; and the deadline could not be met. In the instant case the problem is not with the lack of Saturday or Sunday hours, but with an election official who was neither personally present all day on a weekday to accept objections nor represented by a deputy clerk appointed to accept in her place. (The last day for filing here, February 2, 1987, was a Monday.) Nevertheless, some of the cases, particularly those where Saturday was the last day, provide some guidance. Pettigrove v. Parro Construction Corp. (1963), 44 Ill.App.2d 421, 194 N.E.2d 521, involved the final date for filing a petition to reinstate a previously dismissed cause of action. The plaintiff was unable to file on the last day because it was a Saturday and the office of the clerk of the circuit court was closed all day. The court held that the time for filing had been extended to the next day the clerk's office was open. The Pettigrove court noted that a statute authorized the closing of the clerk's office by rule of court. However, no determination was made as to whether such a rule had been adopted by the circuit court. Rather, the court said: "But whether closed by rule or not, as a practical matter the office was closed so that there was no opportunity for the plaintiffs Page 3 to file their petition." (**506***345Pettigrove v. Parro Construction Corp. (1963), 44 Ill.App.2d 421, 426, 194 N.E.2d 521.) The court then noted that it is commonly known that circuit clerk's offices in Illinois usually close on Saturday and explained that the legislature did not intend for any rule to require a litigant to do something which cannot be done. It was logical to find that where the last day fell on a Saturday and the office was closed on Saturday, the plaintiffs could not follow the statute or an order of the court. Thus, the exclusion of the day the office was closed was proper. The court focused on what it called the practical application of the law and said: "[W]here an office is closed on the final day for the doing of any act provided by law *778 to be done, that day shall also be excluded." (44 Ill.App.2d 421, 426, 194 N.E.2d 521.) The plaintiff's petition was held to be filed on time. In Burgess v. Erickson (1966), 72 Ill.App.2d 85, 218 N.E.2d 111, a record on appeal was filed two days late because the office of the clerk of the appellate court was closed on the last day for filing which was a Saturday. Following Pettigrove, the court stated that the time for filing is computed by excluding the first day and including the last day, unless the last day is a Sunday, a legal holiday, "or a day on which the office of the clerk of this court is closed." (72 Ill.App.2d 85, 86, 218 N.E.2d 111.) The late filing was allowed. Although Pettigrove and Burgess involved offices which were closed on Saturday, the significant factor in those cases was not that the last day for filing was a Saturday, but that the office was closed all day on Saturday. The Burgess court made this clear when it said that a day when the office is closed should be one of the exclusions from computation of the time period. Thus, the day the office was closed could just as easily have been a Monday as a Saturday. In this sense these cases are similar to the case at bar. The Pettigrove court adhered to the principle that the legislature did not intend to require something of a litigant which could not be done and noted that the litigant there did not even have an opportunity to file. In the present case respondent cannot claim that he had no opportunity to file. Unlike the offices in Pettigrove and Burgess which were closed all day, it is undisputed here that the village clerk was present in her office for at least part of the morning and © 2006 Thomson/West. No Claim to Orig. U.S. Govt. Works. 309