IMPRACTICABILITY
Substantial difficulty or inconvenience in follow-
ing a particular course of action, but not such
insurmountability or hopelessness as to make per-
formance impossible.
Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Proce-
dure establishes impracticability as one of the
grounds for permitting a CLASS ACTION in fed-
eral courts. “[T]he class is so numerous that
JOINDER of all members is impracticable.” In
such a situation, the court will permit a few indi-
viduals who have made a motion to it to repre-
sent in one lawsuit a large number of persons
who will be similarly affected by the legal out-
come of the particular action. The group to be
represented must be so large that there would be
significant problems or impracticability in
bringing each member before the court to
appear as a party to the action. For purposes of
certification as a class, the prospective represen-
tatives must show that joinder can be accom-
plished only with substantial difficulty, expense,
and hardship, but not that such joinder cannot
be done at all. State procedural rules also require
that joinder of all prospective class members be
impracticable before permitting the commence-
ment of a class action in state courts.
In the law governing sales, the UNIFORM
COMMERCIAL CODE allows either party to a con-
tract to be excused from the legal obligations
created by it where performance becomes
impracticable because an unexpected event has
occurred, such as a severe shortage of supplies
due to unexpected and continual flooding.
CROSS-REFERENCES
