7.3 Impossibility of Compliance

The doctrine: the law's excuse — the impossible not commanded (the lex non cogit ad impossibilia: the law does not compel the impossible); the applications: (i) the physical impossibility (the act's literal performance impossible — the flood-and-calamity cases; the document's destruction); (ii) the legal impossibility (the performance legally barred — the conflicting duties' cases); (iii) the supervening impossibility (the performance's subsequent frustration); the interpretive craft: the impossibility's statutory recognition (the extension-and- excuse clauses; the force majeure provisions) + the judicial excuse (the impossibility's reading-in where the statute's silent — the reasonableness's presumption (Unit 6.8's kinship)); the limits: the self-induced impossibility's no-excuse (the wrongdoer's own-created impossibility — the 6.7 presumption's companion); the expense-and-hardship's distinction (the inconvenience is not the impossibility — the burden's tolerance). The Nepal faces: the calamity-and-deadline cases (the earthquake-era extensions; the festivals-and-limitation questions); the COVID-era applications (the closures'-and-deadlines' excusable reading — the modern practical craft).