Act of God

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Act of God Certain acts of nature, such as earthquakes, floods or hurricanes, that are beyond human control.

In the law of contracts, an "act of God" may be interpreted as an implied defense under the rule of impossibility, i.e., the promise is discharged because of unforeseen, naturally occurring events that were unavoidable and which would result in insurmountable delay, expense or other material breach. In other contracts, such as indemnification, an act of God may be no excuse, and in fact may be the central risk assumed by the promisor, e.g., flood insurance or crop insurance; the only variables being the timing and extent of the damage. In many cases, failure by way of ignoring obvious risks due to "natural phenomena" will not be sufficient to excuse performance of the obligation, even if the events are relatively rare, e.g., Y2K problems in computers. Under the Uniform Commercial Code, §2-615, failure to deliver goods sold may be excused by an "act of God" if the absence of such act was a "basic assumption" of the contract, but has made the delivery commercially "impracticable."