The best day to file a lawsuit: electing the first legal step

When to file a court case, by astrology

When to file a court case is, for astrology, a question of election. In legal matters, as in any other, the tradition held that a matter takes the character of the sky at its beginning, and a suit begins at its filing, the moment a claim is first raised. So the best day to file a lawsuit is not a date on a list but a window inside the days you are able to file, when the chart of that moment favors the one who brings the case. Canopy treats it as a purpose of its own, Filing Court Cases & Lawsuits, Rafʿ al-Daʿwā, literally the raising of a claim: filing a lawsuit, starting legal action or submitting a petition, which the app calls “Best for taking the first legal step.”

No auspicious day to file a court case holds for everyone. The rising sign turns about every two hours, the Moon changes sign every two to three days, and Jupiter and Mercury, the two planets that matter most for a suit, each spend weeks or months retrograde. The useful question is narrower: within the period the law allows, and for the place you file from, which moment has the fewest faults and the most help?

What astrology weighed in legal matters

A lawsuit has two sides, and the electional authors read its chart as a contest. The Ascendant and its lord stand for the one who begins, here the party who files; the seventh house opposite stands for the defendant, the house Canopy labels “Partners, others, and open enemies”. A filing is read through four houses, in this order: the first, the seventh, the tenth, of authority, before which a case is brought, and the third, of messages, which carry the claim. Canopy counts them as whole signs from the rising sign of the chosen moment.

Jupiter, the planet of law and judgment, and Mercury, the planet of documents and argument, are the significators of a filing. Jupiter comes first, and a Moon applying to him counts in a window’s favor. Each is scored by sign, strong in domicile or exaltation (Jupiter in Sagittarius, Pisces or Cancer; Mercury in Gemini or Virgo) and weak in detriment or fall (Jupiter in Gemini, Virgo or Capricorn; Mercury in Sagittarius or Pisces), and the window’s reading names the condition, as in “Significator Jupiter (al-Mushtarī) in domicile — strong for the matter”.

Then comes the contest. Canopy weighs the lord of the Ascendant, who stands for you, against the lord of the seventh, who stands for your opponent. When yours is stronger, the window gains, with the line “the self prevails in this bilateral matter”. When the other lord is stronger, the line reads “the other party holds the stronger hand”, which costs a legal window more than it costs a negotiation. And whenever yours is not the stronger of the two, ties included, the window is held back from the top of the scale.

When a filing window is set aside

Some faults rule a filing window out entirely. The search does not show such a window with a warning; it leaves it off the list. These refusals belong to the filing purpose:

• Mars or Saturn anywhere in the first whole-sign house, the plaintiff’s own, with no exception, which reaches further than the universal refusal of a malefic within 3° of the Ascendant;
• Mars or Saturn in the seventh, the defendant’s house, unless the planet stands there in its detriment or fall: Mars in Taurus, Libra or Cancer, Saturn in Cancer, Leo or Aries;
• the Moon in the eighth or twelfth whole-sign house, a rule drawn from Sahl ibn Bishr, and of the three legal purposes only the filing carries it;
• Jupiter or Mercury retrograde, since Sahl and the Picatrix read a retrograde significator as a matter that stalls or fails;
• Algol, or another star Canopy counts as malefic, within a degree of the Descendant, the seventh house’s own angle, which a filing guards because it weighs the seventh; on the Ascendant or the Midheaven such a star refuses a window for any purpose.

The retrograde rule shapes a filing search more than any other. Mercury turns retrograde about three times a year for some three weeks, and Jupiter for about four months in every thirteen, so a range of a few months can hold long stretches with no filing window at all. If the results come back empty, with “No window favors your chart in this stretch”, widen the range or move it, as far as your deadline allows.

The faults that strike any window

A filing also shares the refusals Canopy applies to every named purpose. A window is set aside when the Moon is combust, within 8.5° of the Sun, unless she is cazimi, in the heart of the Sun; when she is void of course, which Sahl and al-Bīrūnī read as a beginning that comes to nothing; when she is in the via combusta from 19° Libra to 15° Scorpio, or joined to the South Node; and when the lord of the Ascendant is burned by the Sun. The electional astrology guide sets out how Canopy reads an election for every purpose.

Hours, Moon signs and mansions for a filing

Among the windows that pass, the planetary hour counts: the hours of Jupiter, Mercury and the Sun count in a filing window’s favor and the hour of Saturn against it, and, as in every search, the hour of Mars costs something. The tradition held Jupiter’s hour suitable for law and petitions, as the guide to what each hour was used for records. The search scores the hour, not the weekday, so a Jupiter hour on a Monday counts as fully as one on Thursday, Jupiter’s day. The free planetary hour calculator shows the hour now for the city you choose.

The Moon’s sign counts as well. A Moon in Aries, Gemini, Leo, Libra, Sagittarius or Aquarius, the six fire and air signs, counts in a filing window’s favor; in the other six she is neither favored nor refused on that account.

Her lunar mansion counts for more: two of the twenty-eight count in a filing’s favor and four heavily against it. These are scores, not refusals, and they are this purpose’s own rules; three of the four it marks down are mansions the general reading counts as fortunate.

The rules meet along the Moon’s path. Early Leo, in al-Jabha, is her strongest stretch on these two counts, a favored sign and a favored mansion together; from 8°34′ Leo she enters al-Zubra, and the mansion’s mark against outweighs the sign’s help. Libra is favored, but its first 12°51′ are al-Ghafr and from 19° the burnt path begins, so only the degrees between are clear. The first degrees of Sagittarius fall in al-Shawla, and al-ʿAwwāʾ still counts in early Virgo, though Virgo is not a favored sign. Each mansion’s general reading is on what each mansion favors; tonight’s is live on the lunar mansions guide.

One fixed star is sought. When the zodiac degree of Deneb Algedi, Dhanab al-Jady, the tail of the goat, falls within a degree of the Ascendant, the Midheaven or the Descendant, the window gains the line “Deneb Algedi is sought for this election”. In the app, the star’s own page lists legal matters and justice under Seek.

Filing is not the hearing

Canopy keeps three legal purposes apart under Legal: Signing Contracts & Agreements, Filing Court Cases & Lawsuits, and Court Appearances & Hearings. Its guide to the purposes notes that appearing at a hearing later is a different purpose, and the rules show why.

A hearing is judged from the tenth, the house of authority, rather than from the contest of the first and seventh. It takes Jupiter as its only significator and refuses Jupiter or the Sun in the seventh, where their help would fall to the other side; the guide to timing a court hearing covers it. A contract is also read from the first and the seventh, but with Mercury and Venus as its significators, the hour of Venus added to the favored hours and the Moon favored in Gemini, Virgo or Libra: see the best day to sign a contract. For a dispute that may settle out of court, see the best day to negotiate.

In most suits the filing is also the date you control: a hearing date is usually set by the court, while the day the complaint or petition goes in is, within the deadline, yours to choose. That is where an election has the most room.

How to find the best day to file a lawsuit in Canopy

In the app, open Elections, choose Events, and under “What are you electing for?” pick Filing Court Cases & Lawsuits, listed under Legal. Set the dates with From and To: the range opens on the next three months and can run to 183 days, about six months. If a deadline is fixed, end the range on the last day you can safely file. Check the Location card, since the hours and the rising sign are worked out for the place, then tap Find Best Moments.

The results list the windows that pass for one, three or six months, sorted by Soonest or Best Quality. Each card gives the time, the Ascendant, the Midheaven and the hour’s ruler, the first favorable factors with check marks, a line on your chart once your birth data is entered, and a percentage from 50% up. Open a window to see its quality, Good from 50% and Excellent from 70%, then House Ruler Analysis, with a card for each of the filing’s four houses, and Why this time?, which lists the factors behind the score. Save to Calendar keeps the window, and Set Reminder tells you before it opens.

Many courts now accept filings electronically and record the time each is received, so a chosen hour is easier to keep than it once was; ask your lawyer or the court clerk what counts as the time of filing where you are.

Your chart and the suit

The windows are ranked by the election chart alone. Once your birth data is entered, your natal chart is added as a small, bounded adjustment, capped at ten points either way, under Relationship to Your Natal, and Your Chart at Election Time draws the two charts together. An election that rises in the sign of your natal sixth, eighth or twelfth house counts against a window, and so does a rising degree or Moon on or near your natal Mars or Saturn; an election rising on the degree of your natal Jupiter or Venus, when that planet stands in a good house of your nativity, counts for it. Most purposes also gain when the election rises in the sign of the natal house that matches their matter, such as your seventh for a marriage or your tenth for authority; the legal purposes have no such house.

Canopy reads one nativity, yours. It does not compare your chart with your opponent’s, and it does not cast horary charts, so the old question “will I win?” lies outside what it answers. What it times is the beginning.

Questions