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This article is about the excuse for non-performance of a contract. For the criminal defense, see Impossibility defense.

"Impossible" redirects here. For other uses, see Impossible (disambiguation).

See modal logic for logic which discusses impossibility, contingency and necessity

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 such a defense to be raised, performance must not merely be difficult or unexpectedly costly for one party; there must be no way for it to actually be accomplished.

For example, if Rachel contracts to pay Joey $1000 to paint her house on October 1, but the house burns to the ground before the end of September, Rachel is excused from her duty to pay Joey the $1000, and he is excused from his duty to paint her house; however, Joey may still be able to sue for the unjust enrichment of any benefit conferred on Rachel before her house burned down.

However, 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.

The English case that established this doctrine at common law is Taylor v. Caldwell.

[edit] Mathematics and Probability Theory

If an event has a 0% chance of occurrence, it is considered impossible.^[1]

[edit] Related to science

Impossibility by John D. Barrow ©1998 ISBN 0-09-977211-6 - Investigates the limits of science and the science of limits.

[edit] See also

This legal term article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

^ Mathematical Statistics, Jun Shao, Springer Publications, 2005

[0] Mathematical Statistics, Jun Shao, Springer Publications, 2005

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