Frustration Flashcards
Paradine v Jane [1647]
army occupied land but rent still due; no doctrine of frustration
- Landlord demands rent owed, tenant asks to be excused
- no excuses
- rule as to absolute contracts
Taylor v Caldwell [1863]
music hall fire; implied condition
- Taylor contracted to hire Caldwell’s music hall to put on series of concerts
- BUT music hall destroyed by acceidental fire -> no fault -> impossible to give concerts
- Taylor sued Caldwell for breach of contract
- Blackburn J reasoned that there was an implied condition that the subject matter continues to exist
- both parties are excused because there was no fault!
Jackson v The Union Marine Insurance Co Ltd [1874]
delay for repairs was so long it was impossible to perform the contractual adventure
- chartered ship to bring iron rails from Wales to San Francisco
- ship ran aground and would need 6 months to repair -> Charterer got replacement ship
- “the voyage the parties contemplated had become impossible; … a voyage undertaken after the ship was sufficiently repaired would have been a different voyage” - Bramwell B
- both parties understood the commercial purpose of requiring travel at the intended time -> contract frustrated
Davis Contractors v Fareham UDC [1956]
labour shortages; ‘radically different’; ‘no consent’
- Builders argued contract frustrated because shortages of labour and materials after war turned an 8 month project into a 22 month one
- wanted contract to be frustrated so that they could be paid more outside the contract in the law of restitution (market rates instead of contract price)
- Contract NOT frustrated -> the job never became a different kind of job
- New rationale argued here -> no consent instead of implied terms
-> the circumstances in which performance is called for would render it a thing radically different from that which was undertaken
-> “logical difficulty in seeing how the parties could even impliedly have provided for something which ex hypothesi they neither expected nor foresaw” - “It was not this that I promised to do”
National Carriers v Panalpina [1981]
interruption, radically different
- “would outstanding performance in accordance with the literal terms of the contract differ so significantly from what the parties reasonably contemplated at the time of execution that it would be unjust”
FA Tamplin Steamship Co Ltd v Anglo-Mexican Petroleum Products Co Ltd [1916]
government requisitioned ship; implied term
- was a contract to charter ship for five years frustrated because the government had requisitioned the ship for the war?
- “the parties must have made their bargain on the footing that a particular thing or state of things would continue to exist. And if they must have done so, then a term to that effect will be implied”
- “such a term can rarely be implied except where the discontinuance is such as to upset altogether the purpose of the contract”
- “true meaning of the contract?”
Hirji Mulji v Cheong Yue Steamship Co Ltd [1926]
what the parties ‘subconsciously’ meant
- law is only doing what the parties really (though subconsciously) meant to do themselves
Ocean Tramp Tankers Corp v V/O Sovfracht (The Eugenia) [1964]
Suez Canal; breach of ‘war clause’
- “theory of an implied term has now been discarded by everyone […] it does not represent the truth.”
- “parties would not have said: “It is all over between us.” They would have differed about what was to happen.”
- “there is no room for an implied term”
Great Peace Shipping Ltd v Tsavliris (International) Ltd (The Great Peace) [2002]
common mistake case: connection between frustration and mistake
- Lord Philips MR quotes Diplock LJ in Hongkong Fir Shipping (termination in performance)
- states a common test for frustration, repudiatory breach of contract, common mistake
- test in Hongkong: “does the occurrence of the event deprive the party who has further undertakings still to perform of substantially the whole benefit which it was the intention of the parties as expressed in the contract that he should obtain as the consideration for performing those undertakings?”
Krell v Henry [1903]
defendant hired flat to watch coronation procession which was cancelled
- cancellation of King Edward VII’s coronation in 1902 -> postponed due to his illness
- People had paid a lot of money to rent rooms to view procession
- Vaughan Williams LJ: the use of the rooms was let and taken for the purpose of seeing the Royal procession -> common purpose
- “if the contract becomes impossible of performance by reason of the non-existence of the state of things assumed by both contracting parties as the foundation of the contract, there will be no breach of the contract thus limited”
Herne Bay Steamboat Co v Hutton [1903]
defendant hired boat to watch naval review which was cancelled
- a royal naval review was planned
- Hutton hired a boat “for the purpose of viewing the naval review and for a day’s cruise round the fleet” but event was cancelled
- Hutton didn’t pay for the boat -> claimants sued him for breach
- Vaughan Williams LJ stated that Mr Hutton’s purposes didn’t lay the foundations of the contract -> gives example of taking a cab to watch the horse races -> can’t nullify the contract
The cancellation of an event that the contract is made for does not frustrate the contract where the contract is not unique to the event
Griffith v Brymer (1903)
mistake case
- cancellation of King Edward VII’s coronation in 1902 -> postponed due to his illness
- People had paid a lot of money to rent rooms to view procession
- contract was made at 11am after decision to cancel procession made at 10am -> contract was void for mistake because it was made upon a “missupposition of the state of facts”
Whincup v Hughes [1871]
death of apprentice’s master frustrates contract
Notcutt v Universal Equipment Co [1986]
illness frustrated employment
Marshall v Harland & Wolff Ltd [1972]
illness was not frustrating because worker could recover and return to work in future
- “[whether] further performance of his obligations in the future would either be impossible or would be a thing radically different from that undertaken by him and accepted by the employer under the agreed terms of this employment?”
Phillips v Alhambra Palace Co Ltd [1901]
death of one business partner not frustrating because the partners’ identity was not essential
