Frustration of Purpose + Spring Break Reset

This is the second Spring buffer class. Students are returning from Spring Break and the year is at its longest. Half the class is required doctrine (frustration of purpose via Krell), half is flex. The required block closes out the excuse triad begun last class; the flex block consolidates Module VI.

Frustration of purpose

R2d § 265. Where, after a contract is made, a party’s principal purpose is substantially frustrated without that party’s fault by an event the non-occurrence of which was a basic assumption of the contract, the remaining duties are discharged. Frustration is the mirror image of impracticability: there, performance becomes prohibitively costly; here, performance stays perfectly possible but its value drops toward zero. The purpose that is frustrated must be one both parties understood as the foundation of the deal, not merely the disappointed party’s private motive. And like the other excuse doctrines, frustration yields to risk allocation: a change fee or non-refundable deposit is the parties’ own answer to the question the doctrine asks.

Cases

Krell v. Henry (C.A. 1903): Henry rented a Pall Mall flat for the daytime of the two days set for Edward VII’s coronation procession, paying an exorbitant price for the view. The king fell ill and the procession was postponed. The room still existed and could still be occupied — performance was possible — but the procession was the shared foundation of the bargain, and its non-occurrence was not within the parties’ contemplation. Henry was excused. The case expressly extends Taylor v. Caldwell from impossibility to frustration of purpose.

What you should be able to do

State the Krell test and apply it to a pattern where performance remains possible but the principal purpose is destroyed; distinguish frustration from impossibility and impracticability on adjacent facts; and explain why all three excuse doctrines are narrow — contract certainty has independent value, so courts treat excuse as the exception, not a general fairness valve.

The flex block runs differently depending on where the semester is. If Module VI has been on schedule, the flex block is module synthesis plus practice problems — the kind of work that pays off on the final exam but does not advance the syllabus. If Module VI has fallen behind, the flex block is catch-up: whatever doctrine got compressed before Spring Break gets a second pass here. Either way, no cold-calls in the flex block; treat it as worked-example time. The Module VI Capstone (Class 43) follows in one week, so this is also the last chance to surface unresolved questions before the consolidation quiz.