Friday, May 06, 2005

Death or Incapacity

If you contract with someone to perform a job with a unique outcome, such as a painter for a portrait, and that person dies, the contract is usually waived for impracticability reasons. However, if you hire a painter to paint your house and he dies, then his executors may be obligated to arrange for a replacement.

Think about that for a second...
If I am a house painter, and I have a job to paint your house next week, and I die, then my family might have to hire a replacement person to paint your house, on top of all the funeral arrangements and loss of income and grief and whatnot. Wow.
I know it makes a certain amount of sense, I undertook the obligation, it's my (through my estate) responsibility to finish what I agreed to finish, it just seems like it wouldn't always be easiest on the person's family...

I don't think I'm going to blog much over the next few days, what with cramming for finals and all, and if I do, it'll probably be some oddball legal theory that I'm trying to straighten out in my head, so I apologize in advance for the excitement you'll be seeing on here through the middle of this month.

2 comments:

English Professor said...

Wow, that is truly incredible. would anyone actually enforce that?

Good luck with finals--I'm with you. And I know I'm "it," just haven't had time to go tagging.

Michelle said...

Best Wishes Steve, you'll be fine!