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134:, a thirty-five to forty-piece military and quadrille band, al fresco entertainments, minstrels, fireworks and full illuminations, a ballet or divertissement, a wizard and Grecian statues, tight rope performances, rifle galleries, air gun shooting, Chinese and Parisian games, boats on the lake, and aquatic sports.
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performers. Taylor & Lewis agreed to pay one hundred pounds sterling in the evening of the day of each concert by a crossed cheque, and also to find and provide, at their own cost, all the necessary artistes for the concerts, including Mr. Sims Reeves. Then, on 11 June 1861, a week before the
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only applied to positive, definite contracts, not to those in which there was an express or implied condition underlying the contract. He further reasoned that the continued existence of the Music Hall in Surrey
Gardens was an implied condition essential for the fulfilment of the contract. The
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Until this case, parties to a contract were held to be absolutely bound and a failure to perform was not excused by radically changed circumstances. Instead, the contract was breached, and that gave rise to a claim for damages. This ruling, although quite narrow, opened the door for the modern
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for the proposition that when the existence of a particular thing is essential to a contract, and the thing is destroyed by no fault of the party selling it, the parties are freed from obligation to deliver the thing. He further analogized to a situation in which a contract requiring personal
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for four concerts and day and evening fetes on Monday 17 June, Monday 15 July, Monday 5 August, and Monday 19 August 1861. They were going to provide a variety of extravagant entertainments including a singing performance by
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the music hall owners for breach of contract for failing to rent out the music hall to them. There was no clause within the contract itself which allocated the risk to the underlying facilities, except for the phrase
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Catharine
Macmillan. "Taylor v Caldwell (1863)". Charles Mitchell and Paul Mitchell (eds). Landmark Cases in the Law of Contract. Hart Publishing. 2008. Chapter 6.
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destruction of the music hall was the fault of neither party and rendered the performance of the contract by either party impossible. Blackburn J cited the
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Robert L Birmingham, "Why Is There Taylor v. Caldwell? Three
Propositions About Impracticability" (1988 to 1989) 23 University of San Francisco Law Review
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are not held liable. Blackburn J thus held that both parties were excused from their obligations under their contract.
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first concert was to be given, the music hall burned to the ground. The plaintiffs
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