Louisiana Power & Light Company v. Allegheny Ludlum Industries, Inc.
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana
517 F.Supp. 1319 (1981)
LP&L (plaintiff) contracted with Allegheny (defendant) for nuclear-plant tubing, with a cancellation clause benefiting only LP&L; before delivery, Allegheny sought additional compensation after material and labor costs rose 38 percent, and when LP&L refused to renegotiate, Allegheny refused to deliver at the contract price, prompting LP&L to cover elsewhere and sue for breach. Allegheny raised commercial impracticability, unconscionability, and bad faith defenses, and LP&L moved for summary judgment.
Whether a party may be excused from performance if performance is made impracticable by the occurrence of a contingency, the non-occurrence of which was a basic assumption on which the contract was made.