Krell v Henry Context <Back>

 

  1. BulletBO = BE = (R0,A0,Con) with R0 consists of the following self-describing rules:


  1. •    ViewCoronation ← RentRoom, Coronation


        stating that Henry can view the coronation if he rents the room and the coronation is held.


  1. •    ¬Coronation ← KingSick


        stating that the coronation is not held if the King is sick.


  1. •    ¬ViewCoronation ← ¬Coronation

       

        stating that one can not view the coronation if it is not held.

  1. •     A0 = {Coronation}, Con(Coronation) = ¬Coronation


         representing that the coronation is commonly assumed to be held. The absence of rules leading to KingSick represents that neither parties was  the King could be sick.


  1. BulletKO = KE = BO = BE representing that both parties are not expected to know that the King could be sick.


  1. Bullet CKt =(Rt,At,Con) with At =∅ and Rt = { E ⊏ KingSick ← }  stating that the King is sick after the contract signing.


  1. BulletCKd = BO = BE.


  1. BulletCost function is undefined since neither parties could do anything to prevent the event KingSick or mitigate its consequences.

From these module the following arguments about factors of the case can be made:


  1. ✓KingSick happened after contract making as CKt ⊢sk E ⊏ KingSick.


  1. ✓KingSick is unexpected for both parties as there are no arguments supporting KingSick from BX ∈ {BO, BE}


  1. ✓KingSick falsifies a common belief held by both parties that the coronation would be held as :


BX ⊢cr Coronation and CKd ∪ {KingSick} ⊢sk ¬Coronation.

  1. ✓Both parties believed that if the coronation is held, then the performance of the contract fulfills goal “ViewCoronation” as:


BX ∪ {RentRoom, Coronation} ⊢cr ViewCoronation


  1. ✓However, goal “ViewCoronation” is destroyed when the coronation is cancelled as:


         CKd ∪ {RentRoom, ¬Coronation} ⊢sk ¬ ViewCoronation


Let FRUST be a module representing the doctrine of frustration of purpose (as graphically presented in this page and formally presented in this article), it is easy to check that FRUST ⊢sk Frustration(contract), i.e. conditions 1 and 2 of the doctrine hold.


Further, conditions 3 and 4 also hold since there are no arguments for RiskAllocatedTo(Henry, contract).


Thus FRUST ⊢sk Rescind(Henry,  contract), i.e. Henry could rescind from performing the contract on the grounds of frustration of purpose.

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