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“Millie contracted to sell Frank 10,000 bushels of corn to be grown on Millie 's farm. Due to a drought during the growing season, Millie 's yield was much less than anticipated, and she could deliver only 250 bushels to Frank. Frank accepted the lesser amount but sued Millie for breach of contract. Can Millie defend successfully on the basis of outcome impossibility of performance? Explain” In contracts in which the performance depends on the continued existence of a given person or thing, an implied condition is that the perishing of the person or thing shall excuse performance. With this being said, Millie does have a valid defense. The plaintiff and defendant both agree to a fixed amount. However, since unforeseen difficulties are encountered, the plaintiff will not be entitled to additional compensation. Objective impossibility must be shown. Objective possibility is the nature prevents the contract from being fulfilled, rather than the promisor being unable to complete the contract. Three conditions must be satisfied before performance is excused. Those conditions are: a contingency has occurred; the contingency has made performance impracticable; the nonoccurrence of that contingency was a basic assumption upon which the contract was made. The rationale for the defense of commercial impracticability is when the circumstance causing the breach has rendered performance so drastically different from what was anticipated that the contract cannot be reasonably thought to govern. There is some validity to commercial impracticability. This applies because the contract was originally for ten thousand bushels. The delivery was for much less than that. As a matter of fact, the delivery did not even equate to a tenth of the initial order.
References :
Condensed_FundofBusLawSumCas_Miller_ch10.pdf Pages: 203-218
References: : Condensed_FundofBusLawSumCas_Miller_ch10.pdf Pages: 203-218 Condensed_FundofBusLawSumCas_Miller_ch11.pdf Pages: 222-235 http://definitions.uslegal.com/i/impossibility/ http://www.jstor.org/stable/1278026