How could commercial impractibility be used as a defense in a breach of contract case?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Commercial impracticability could be used as a defense against nonperformance. According to Smith, Currie, and Hancock in Common Sense Construction Law (2005 p. 208): The theory of commercial impracticability is related to the doctrine of impossibility. In the leading case of Mineral Park Land Co. v. Howard, the court described the concept as follows: A thing is impossible in legal contemplation when it is not practicable; a thing is impracticable when it can only be done at an excessive and unreasonable cost… We do not mean to intimate that the defendants could excuse themselves by showing the existence of conditions, which would make the performance of their obligations more expensive than they had anticipated, or which would entail a loss by them. But where the difference in cost is so great, as has the effect, as found, of making performance impracticable, the situation is not different from that of a total absence of earth and gravel (Emphasis added). In Mineral Park Land, the contractor was excused from performing a gravel excavation contract when the cost of performance proved to be twelve times that originally anticipated.