New Beginnings provides rehabilitation services for alcohol and drug abuse to

both adults and adolescents. New Beginnings entered into negotiation with Adbar

for the lease of a building in the city of St. Louis, and subsequently entered into a

three-year lease. The total rent due for the three-year term was $273,000. After

the lease was executed, the city denied an occupancy permit because Alderman

Bosley and residents testified at a hearing in vigorous opposition to the presence

Chapter 19 Discharge of Contracts 431

of New Beginnings in the neighborhood. A court ordered the permit issued.

Alderman Bosley thereafter contacted the chair of the state’s appointment

committee and asked her to pull the agency’s funding. He received no

commitment from her on this matter. After a meeting with the state director of

Alcohol and Drug Abuse where it was asserted that the director said the funding

would be pulled if New Beginnings moved into the Adbar location, New

Beginnings’s board decided not to occupy the building. Adbar brought suit for

breach of the lease, and New Beginnings asserted it was excused from

performance because of commercial impracticability and frustration of purpose.

Do you believe the doctrine of commercial impracticability should be limited in

its application so as to preserve the certainty of contracts? What rule of law applies

to this case? Decide. [Adbar v New Beginnings, 103 SW2d 799 (Mo App)]

Appendix