The Earth takes 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 56 seconds to orbit the Sun. Leap years allow us to recalibrate our calendar and keep it from gradually falling out of sync with the seasons by adding a day to some years to account for the extra time and make the average year 365.2422 days long rather than the non-leap-year normal of 365 days. Leap years occur when a year is evenly divisible by four, unless the year is also divisible by 100 but not by 400.
Leap years can create some interesting legal questions, particularly for leap babies. In Oregon, driver licenses (yes, technically the law uses “driver” not “driver’s”) expire on the driver’s birthday. In non-leap years, the DMV recognizes February 28 as the expiration day for leap babies per OAR 735-062-0007. Many other legal deadlines put in terms of a number of years from a particular date similarly substitute February 28 for leap day in non-leap years per ORS § 174.120.
To learn more about leap years, visit the National Air and Space Museum, NASA Space Place, or US Naval Observatory Astronomical Information Center. And, as always, don’t hesitate to contact us for your estate planning needs. We hope you enjoy your extra day of 2024!