A civil-law concept defining a rule, doctrine, or procedural mechanism used to resolve private disputes. It applies when its legally specified conditions are satisfied and produces defined consequences in adjudication or settlement. It does not apply where required elements or prerequisites are not met. It materially affects rights, obligations, or available remedies in civil controversies. The concept is generally stable, though statutory and doctrinal refinements may occur over time.

Principle

The core rule is that objective impossibility—not mere difficulty or increased cost—released the promisor when the event was not caused by the promisor and was unforeseeable and unavoidable.

Demonstration

A contract to sell a unique painting is discharged when the painting is destroyed in a fire before delivery, because the subject matter's destruction makes performance impossible.

Misapplication

Claiming impossibility because performance has become more expensive, inconvenient, or merely impractical, rather than truly impossible, or invoking impossibility for self-induced or foreseeable risks.

Consequence

Proper application results in discharge of the duty and possible restitutionary adjustments (return of benefits), leaving parties without breach liability for failure to perform due to the impossibility.

Reversal

Risk allocation by contract (e.g., force majeure) or scenarios of impracticability/frustration are contrasting doctrines: impossibility is absolute objective incapacity, while others handle severe hardship or contractual allocation of risk.

Boundary

Requires objective, uncontrollable, and unforeseeable destruction or change that makes performance impossible; it excludes temporary impediments, mere hardship, changes within assumed risks, and self-induced impossibility.

Semantic Tension

Tension exists with impracticability and frustration doctrines and with contractual risk-shifting clauses; distinguishing impossibility from severe difficulty or foreseeable risk is often fact-intensive and jurisdiction-dependent.

Synthesis

Impossibility discharges contractual duties when an unforeseen, objective event removes the means of performing, providing a narrow excuse that contrasts with doctrines addressing extreme hardship or contractual risk allocation.