In law, the impossibility of performing a contractual duty
This article is about the excuse for non-performance of a contract. For other uses, see Impossibility (disambiguation).
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Contract law
Formation
Capacity
Offer and acceptance
Meeting of the minds2
Abstraction principle4,5
Posting rule1
Mirror image rule
Invitation to treat
Firm offer
Consideration1,4
Implication-in-fact
Collateral contract
Defences
Misrepresentation
Mistake
Threats and unequal bargaining power
Illegality and public policy
Unconscionability
Culpa in contrahendo2
Force majeure
Frustration of purpose
Impossibility
Impracticability
Hardship
Set-off
Illusory promise1
Statute of frauds1
Non est factum1
Unclean hands1
Accord and satisfaction1
Exculpatory clause
Interpretation
Parol evidence3
Contract of adhesion
Integration clause
Contra proferentem
UNIDROIT Principles
Dispute resolution
Choice of law clause
Forum selection clause
Hague Choice of Court Convention
Arbitration
New York Convention
UNCITRAL Model Law
Mediation
Singapore Mediation Convention
Enforcement of foreign judgments
Hague Judgments Convention
Rights of third parties
Privity of contract1
Assignment
Delegation
Novation
Third-party beneficiary
Breach of contract
Anticipatory repudiation
Cover
Exclusion clause
Efficient breach
Deviation
Fundamental breach
Remedies
Specific performance3
Money damages
Liquidated, stipulated, or penal damages3
Rescission
Quasi-contractual obligations
Promissory estoppel1
Quantum meruit1
Unjust enrichment
Restitution
Negotiorum gestio2
Duties of parties
Duty of honest contractual performance (or doctrine of abuse of rights)6
Duty of good faith (also implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing or duty to negotiate in good faith)7
Contract A and Contract B in Canadian contract law6
Related areas of law
Conflict of laws
Commercial law
By jurisdiction
Australia
Canada
China (mainland)
Ireland
India
Saudi Arabia
United Kingdom
England and Wales
Scotland
United States
Other law areas
Tort law
Property law
Wills, trusts, and estates
Criminal law
Evidence
Notes
1 Specific to common law jurisdictions
2 Specific to civil and mixed law jurisdictions
3 Historically restricted in common law jurisdictions but generally accepted elsewhere; availability varies between contemporary common law jurisdictions
4 Specific to the German Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch and other civil codes based on the pandectist tradition
5 Explicitly rejected by the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts
6 Specific to Canadian contract law both in Québec and in the country's common law provinces
7 Specific to civil law jurisdictions, the American Uniform Commercial Code, and Canadian jurisprudence in both Québec and the common law provinces pertaining to contractual and pre-contractual negotiation
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The doctrine[1] of impossibility or impossibility of performance or impossibility of performance of contract is a doctrine in contract law.
In contract law, impossibility is an excuse for the nonperformance of duties under a contract, based on a change in circumstances (or the discovery of preexisting circumstances), the nonoccurrence of which was an underlying assumption of the contract, that makes performance of the contract literally impossible.
For example, if Ebenezer contracts to pay Erasmus £100 to paint his house on October 1, but the house burns to the ground before the end of September, Ebenezer is excused from his duty to pay Erasmus the £100, and Erasmus is excused from his duty to paint Ebenezer's house; however, Erasmus may still be able to sue under the theory of unjust enrichment for the value of any benefit he conferred on Ebenezer before his house burned down.
The parties to a contract may choose to ignore impossibility by inserting a hell or high water clause, which mandates that payments continue even if completion of the contract becomes physically impossible.
Sometimes it is impossible to perform a contract as a result of war.[2]
^Sources also speak of a principle
^As to impossibility of performance of contract during war, see Arnold Duncan McNair, "War-Time Impossibility of Performance of Contract", Essays and Lectures Upon Some Legal Effects of War, Cambridge, at the University Press, 1920, Chapter 5, p 78; Henry Campbell, "Impossibility of Performance", The Law of War and Contract, Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, 1918, chapter 5, p 263 et seq Google; K V R Townsend, "Impossibility of Performance of Contracts due to War-Time Governmental Interference" (1941) 8 Current Legal Thought 150; "Impossiblity of Performance of Contracts due to War-Time Regulations" (1918 to 1919) 32 Harvard Law Review 789; Weber, The Effect of War on Contracts, 2nd Ed, 1946, p 445 et seq; MacKinnon, Effect of War on Contract: Being an Attempted Analysis of the Doctrine of Discharge of Contract by Impossibility of Performance: With a Résumé of the Principal Cases decided in the English Courts during the Present War, 1917 Google; Trotter, The Law of Contract during War, 1914, p 57, 58 and 59 et seq Google; Trotter, The Law of Contract during and after War, 3rd Ed, 1919, p 118 et seq; Trotter, Supplement to the Law of Contract during War, 1915, pp 76, 77 and 78 et seq Google; and Coleman Philipson, "Where new circumstances would make lawful fulfilment impossible", The Effect of War on Contracts, 1909, p 78 Google.
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