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Parties in complex commercial cases that are accused of defaulting on or breaching a contract may invoke the defense of impossibility, arguing that performance of contractual obligations was rendered impossible by an intervening event. Under New York law, those arguments rarely make it past the motion stage. Courts apply the doctrine narrowly, only to executory contracts and only where the intervening event was both unforeseeable and destroyed either the contract’s subject matter or the means of performance. The related doctrine of frustration of purpose may apply more broadly, but only where it would make little sense to perform on a contract because of an intervening event. The narrowness of these doctrines — and their questionable utility for litigators — underscores the importance of striving during the contract drafting process to include contingency clauses providing for foreseeable possibilities and language making clear the contract’s purpose.
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Say it Ain’t So! Tortious Interference with a Sublease By a Master Landlord
By Marisa L. Byram and Tyler V. Friederich
A South Carolina appellate court recently affirmed a trial court’s decision that a landlord had tortiously interfered with a sublease by terminating the master lease after a fire damaged the subject building and such landlord was liable to the subtenant for punitive damages.
Second Circuit Expands Federal Class Actions for Mortgagors
By By Jonathan Robbin
The Second Circuit recently held that a bare violation of mortgage satisfaction recording statutes without a demonstration of actual injury conferred federal jurisdiction, meaning that a mortgagor now has the ability to bring a class action in federal court. Thus, statutes designed to be merely remedial in nature can now be used punitively against lenders and servicers.
Legal Issues of Leasing to Cannabis Businesses
By Warren A. Estis and Alexander Lycoyannis
New cannabis businesses will need to lease commercial space in order to operate — and undoubtedly, many real estate owners are eager to meet this new demand. However, owners and prospective cannabis businesses have many legal issues and questions to consider before entering into lease agreements.
Force Majeure Clauses In Construction Contracts In the Aftermath of COVID-19
By Jeffery R. Mullen and Fred Warren Jacoby
We are only beginning to scratch the surface of the effect on the construction litigation visited on us by COVID-19-related impacts. However, the pandemic and its continuing impact has reinforced the importance of planning for the unexpected — and undefined — when negotiating construction contracts.
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