''Taylor v Caldwell'' is a landmark English

contract law A contract is an agreement that specifies certain legally enforceable rights and obligations pertaining to two or more Party (law), parties. A contract typically involves consent to transfer of goods, Service (economics), services, money, or pr ...

case, with an opinion delivered by Mr Justice Blackburn which established the doctrine of

common law Common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law primarily developed through judicial decisions rather than statutes. Although common law may incorporate certain statutes, it is largely based on prece ...

impossibility.

Facts

Caldwell & Bishop owned Surrey Gardens & Music Hall, and agreed to rent it out to Taylor & Lewis for £100 a day. Taylor had planned to use the

music hall Music hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment that was most popular from the early Victorian era, beginning around 1850, through the World War I, Great War. It faded away after 1918 as the halls rebranded their entertainment as Varie ...

for four concerts and day and evening fetes on Monday 17 June, Monday 15 July, Monday 5 August, and Monday 19 August 1861. They were going to provide a variety of extravagant entertainments including a singing performance by

Sims Reeves John Sims Reeves (21 October 1821 – 25 October 1900) was an English operatic, oratorio and ballad tenor vocalist during the mid-Victorian era. Reeves began his singing career in 1838 but continued his vocal studies until 1847. He soon establ ...

, a thirty-five to forty-piece military and quadrille band, al fresco entertainments, minstrels, fireworks and full illuminations, a ballet or divertissement, a wizard and Grecian statues, tight rope performances, rifle galleries, air gun shooting, Chinese and Parisian games, boats on the lake, and aquatic sports. According to the contract the parties had signed, the defendants were to provide most of the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

performers. Taylor & Lewis agreed to pay one hundred pounds sterling in the evening of the day of each concert by a crossed cheque, and also to find and provide, at their own cost, all the necessary artistes for the concerts, including Mr. Sims Reeves. Then, on 11 June 1861, a week before the first concert was to be given, the music hall burned to the ground. The plaintiffs

sued A lawsuit is a proceeding by one or more parties (the plaintiff or claimant) against one or more parties (the defendant) in a civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. T ...

the music hall owners for breach of contract for failing to rent out the music hall to them. There was no clause within the contract itself which allocated the risk to the underlying facilities, except for the phrase "

God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

's will permitting" at the end of the contract.

Judgment

Mr Justice Blackburn began his judgement by finding that the agreement between the parties was a contract, despite their use of the term "

lease A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user (referred to as the ''lessee'') to pay the owner (referred to as the ''lessor'') for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial ...

". Under the common law of property in England at the time, under a lease the lessee would obtain legal possession of the premises during the lease period, while the "lease" at issue in this case specified that legal possession would remain with the defendants. Blackburn J reasoned that the rule of absolute liability only applied to positive, definite contracts, not to those in which there was an express or implied condition underlying the contract. He further reasoned that the continued existence of the Music Hall in Surrey Gardens was an implied condition essential for the fulfilment of the contract. The destruction of the music hall was the fault of neither party and rendered the performance of the contract by either party impossible. Blackburn J cited the

civil code A civil code is a codification of private law relating to property law, property, family law, family, and law of obligations, obligations. A jurisdiction that has a civil code generally also has a code of civil procedure. In some jurisdiction ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

and the

Roman law Roman law is the law, legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (), to the (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I. Roman law also den ...

for the proposition that when the existence of a particular thing is essential to a contract, and the thing is destroyed by no fault of the party selling it, the parties are freed from obligation to deliver the thing. He further analogized to a situation in which a contract requiring personal performance is made, and the party to perform dies, when under English

the party's

executor An executor is someone who is responsible for executing, or following through on, an assigned task or duty. The feminine form, executrix, is sometimes used. Executor of will An executor is a legal term referring to a person named by the maker o ...

s are not held liable. Blackburn J thus held that both parties were excused from their obligations under their contract.

Importance

Until this case, parties to a contract were held to be absolutely bound and a failure to perform was not excused by radically changed circumstances. Instead, the contract was breached, and that gave rise to a claim for damages. This ruling, although quite narrow, opened the door for the modern doctrine of contract avoidance by

frustration In psychology, frustration is a common emotional response to opposition, related to anger, annoyance and disappointment. Frustration arises from the perceived resistance to the fulfillment of an individual's Will (philosophy), will or goal and ...

References

*Catharine Macmillan. "Taylor v Caldwell (1863)". Charles Mitchell and Paul Mitchell (eds). Landmark Cases in the Law of Contract. Hart Publishing. 2008. Chapter 6
Page 167
*Robert L Birmingham, "Why Is There Taylor v. Caldwell? Three Propositions About Impracticability" (1988 to 1989) 23 University of San Francisco Law Revie
379

External links

��broken link {{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor V Caldwell 1863 in case law Lord Blackburn cases English frustration case law 1863 in British law Court of King's Bench (England) cases

Facts

Judgment

Importance

See also

References

External links