Although the best drafted contracts anticipate risks and attempt to allocate them among the contracting parties, it is unlikely any contract fully anticipated the economic and commercial impact of the novel coronavirus pandemic.  But how is a retail store able to meet its lease obligations with no revenue coming in?  How can a construction supplier meet its obligations if the product or raw materials are simply not available? We are not experiencing the economy slowing to a trickle, in many sectors the faucet went from wide open to completely closed in a matter of weeks.

If the current commercial slowdown and/or governmental directives are impacting your ability to perform contractual obligations, can you be relieved of those obligations.  The very unsatisfying answer is, it depends.  Unfortunately, there are no definitive answers but there is some interesting case law from North Carolina and elsewhere.  Click here for an interesting article describing several cases that came out of the 1918 flu pandemic.  

For our analysis, the starting point, as always when analyzing contractual rights and obligations, is the contract itself.  Absent a contract provision that anticipates and addresses the specific circumstances, either a government shutdown or more specifically a “pandemic” provision, the most likely place to find relief is in a force majeure clause.  Without contract relief, there are several legal doctrines that may provide excused performance in specific circumstances.