![Taylor v Caldwell [1863] 3 B&S 826](https://legalvidhiya.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Screenshot-2024-01-13-125131.png)
| CITATION | (1863) 3 B & S 826, 122 ER 309 |
| DATE OF JUDGMENT | 6th May, 1863 |
| COURT | Court of King’s Bench (England) |
| APPELLANT | Taylor |
| RESPONDENT | Caldwell |
| PRESIDENT | Mr. Justice Blackburn |
INTRODUCTION
The case of ” Taylor v Caldwell (1863)” The HON’BLE JUSTICE Blackburn , PRESIDING MEMBER For the Appellant Mr. Taylor. For the Respondent Mr. Caldwell, This case is a landmark case in the area of frustration regarding contract law. It established the doctrine of common law impossibility, which allows the parties to be discharged from their contractual obligations if the performance becomes impossible due to the destruction of the subject matter without the fault of either party.
FACTS OF THE CASE
Taylor entered into an agreement with Caldwell to rent The Surrey Gardens and Music Hall for four days to host a series of concerts and fetes. Taylor planned to pay 100 pounds per day for the use of the venue. Both parties made preparations by their agreement, with Caldwell providing various entertainments and Taylor arranging for advertisements and hiring performers.
However, before the first scheduled of concert, the hall was destroyed by an accidental fire, rendering it unusable for the intended events. Taylor consequently sued Caldwell to recover the costs incurred from advertising and preparing for the concerts that could no longer occur.
Caldwell & Bishop owned Surrey Gardens & Music Hall and agreed to rent it out to Taylor & Lewis for 100 pounds a day. Taylor had planned to use the hall for four concerts and day and evening fetes on Monday 17th June, Monday 15th July, Monday 5th August, and Monday 19th August 1861 They were going to provide a variety of extravagant entertainments including dancing performance, singing performance by Sims Reeves, fireworks, a thirty-five to forty-piece military and quadrille band, full illumination, minstrels, tight rope performances, air gun shooting, a wizard and Grecian statues, rifle galleries, boats on the lake, Chinese and Parisian games and aquatic sports.
According to the contract the parties had signed, the defendants were to provide most of the British performers. Taylor 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 artists for the concerts, including Mr. Sims Reeves. Then on 11th June 1861, a week before the first concert was to be given the music hall burned to the ground. The plaintiffs lawsuit the music hall owners for breach of contract for failing to rent out the music hall to them. No clause within the contract itself allocated the risk to the underlying facilities, except for the phrase “God’s will permitting” at the end of the contract.
ISSUES RAISED
- Whether the loss suffered by Taylor is recoverable from Caldwell?
- Whether the destruction of the hall discharged the parties from their contractual obligations?
JUDGEMENT
Mr. Justice Blackburn began his judgement by finding that the agreement between the parties was a contract, despite their use of the term “lease“. The “lease” in question stated that the defendants would retain legal ownership of the premises throughout the lease term, contrary to the common law of property in England at the time, which applied to leases.
According to Blackburn J., the absolute liability rule only applied to explicit, positive contracts, not to do in which there was an express or implemented condition underlying the contract. He further reasoned that the continued existence of the Hall in Surrey Gardens was an implied condition essential for the fulfillment of the contract. Neither side was at fault for the music hall’s demolition, which prevented either from fulfilling their half of the deal. Blackburn J extracts the civil code of France and the Roman law for the proposition that when the existence of a particular thing is necessary to a contract, and the thing is destroyed by no fault of the party selling it and the parties are freed from the obligation to deliver the thing. He went on to compare it to a scenario where a contract is made mandating personal performance, and the party to perform dies when under the English common law, the party’s executors are not held liable. Blackburn J thus held that both parties were excused from their obligations under their contract.
The court held that the defendant was not liable for breach of contract and that the parties were excused from performing their obligations under the doctrine of frustration. The court reasoned that the contract was subject to an implied condition that the parties assumed the continued existence of the hall as the foundation of the contract and that if the hall ceased to exist, the contract would become impossible to perform. The court also noted that this was not an absolute contract, and that there were no express or implied terms that the parties intended to be bound by their obligations even in the event of the accidental destruction of the hall
ANALYSIS
The court reasoned that both parties had entered into the contract with the understanding that The Surrey Gardens and Music Hall would be available for the concerts.
Since the hall was essential for fulfilling the contract, its destruction without fault of either party meant that the contract could not be completed as intended.
An implied condition in contracts dependent on a specific thing is that if that thing ceases to exist, both parties are excused from performance.
Unexpected events that prevent contract fulfillment can lead to both parties being absolved from their contractual obligations
The court found that an implied condition of the contract was that both parties would be excused from their obligations if the hall ceased to exist.
The doctrine of impossibility was applied because the unforeseen destruction of the hall made it impossible to carry out the concerts. The court concluded that neither party should bear the loss resulting from this impossibility, thus absolving Caldwell from liability for Taylor’s expenses.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, there were no express or implied terms of the contract that the obligations should carry on. Therefore, this means that if such a contract had, had a term in it- be it express or implied- that even in the event of the accidental damage the obligations of the parties were to carry on, then they wouldn’t have been discharged
Reference
BY ADNAN PARWEZ, LLOYD SCHOOL OF LAW
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