2 NY Contract Cases Highlight Limits Of Impossibility Defense

A common question in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak has been whether the pandemic or governmental responses to the pandemic provide, depending on the jurisdiction, an impossibility or impracticability defense for nonperformance under a contract.

The answer to that question will, of course, turn on the facts underlying the nonperformance, as well as the law of the jurisdiction. Two recent decisions from New York are instructive on the contours of the defense of impossibility — the relevant defense under New York law.