Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca3-24-01179/USCOURTS-ca3-24-01179-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Michael Boss
Not Party
Kimberly Hoffman
Appellant
Matthew Leonard
Not Party
Rebecca Leonard
Not Party
Elisha Rothman
Not Party
Secretary Pennsylvania Department of Human Services
Appellee
Michael Unger
Not Party

Document Text:

NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

_______________

No. 24-1179

_______________

REBECCA LEONARD; MATTHEW LEONARD, by and through their parents and next

friends, Joe H. Leonard, Jr and Virginia G. Leonard; ELISHA ROTHMAN, by and

through her parents and next friends, Marsha E. Rothman and Barry Rothman;

KIMBERLY HOFFMAN, by and through her parents and next friends, Claire Hoffman

and Stephen Hoffman; MICHAEL BOSS, by and through his parents and next friends,

Ronald Boss and Ruth Thomas; MICHAEL UNGER, by and through

his parents and next friends, Francis J. Unger and Rae M. Unger

v.

SECRETARY PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES

Kimberly Hoffman, by and through her parents and next friends,

Claire Hoffman and Stephen Hoffman,

 Appellant

_______________

On Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

(D.C. No. 2-11-cv-07418)

District Judge: Honorable Harvey Bartle III

_______________

Submitted Under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a) on October 29, 2024

Before: CHAGARES, Chief Judge, PORTER, and CHUNG, Circuit Judges.

(Filed: December 20, 2024)

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_______________

OPINION

_______________

PORTER, Circuit Judge.

I

Kimberly Hoffman is an adult woman with autism who requires full-time care. In 

2011, Kimberly and her parents (collectively, the “Hoffmans”) sued Pennsylvania’s 

Department of Human Services (“DHS”) for not providing Kimberly with the medical 

services guaranteed to her by federal law. The District Court found DHS to be in 

violation of federal law and ordered that a trial be held to determine the appropriate relief.

In lieu of proceeding to trial, the Hoffmans and DHS entered into a settlement 

agreement in 2014. That agreement requires DHS to “identify and reach agreement with a 

[third-party] provider” that will deliver services and care to Kimberly. App. 20e. The 

agreement’s terms are demanding. Among its other provisions, the agreement stipulates

that Kimberly receive 24/7 care, in a one-person residence that is no more than 10 miles 

from her parents’ home and from staff “who have experience in serving people with

Autism.” App. 20f; see also App. 20e, 20h.

For their part, the Hoffman’s must “cooperate with DHS and potential Residential 

Habilitation providers during the process of identifying, procuring, and reaching 

agreement on an acceptable Residential Habilitation provider.” App. 20f. Although the 

 This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not 

constitute binding precedent. 

Case: 24-1179 Document: 42 Page: 2 Date Filed: 12/20/2024
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agreement permits the Hoffmans to reject providers proposed by DHS, they cannot

“unreasonably withhold their approval.” Id. 

Unfortunately, in the many years since the agreement was made, Kimberly has yet 

to be placed with a provider that satisfies the terms of the agreement. From 2017 to 2020,

the parties worked with Step-by-Step, Inc., a provider that, due to staffing issues, could 

only ever deliver 6 hours of care exclusively on weekdays—far short of the 24/7 care that 

the settlement agreement contemplated. 

The parties’ most recent attempt to secure a provider precipitated this appeal. In 

December 2021, DHS identified Supportive Concepts for Families, Inc. (“Supportive 

Concepts”) as a possible provider, and in August 2022, Kimberly initially approved.

From early September to late December, DHS and Supportive Concepts worked to 

transfer title of the residence at which Supportive Concepts would provide care to 

Kimberly. Then suddenly, Kimberly withdrew her approval for Supportive Concepts on 

January 10, 2023. In an email drafted by Kimberly’s farther, Kimberly cited the 

“betray[al of] her trust,” “broken promises,” “abandonment of any 

outreach/communication for months,” among “numerous other issues,” that led to her 

decision. App. 851. That rejection was the final straw for DHS. 

On April 20, 2023, DHS filed a motion for relief from the terms of the settlement 

agreement arguing that the Hoffmans materially breached their obligation to not 

“unreasonably withhold their approval” and that, in the alternative, the settlement 

agreement was impracticable. App. 540; see also App. 537–60i. The District Court held 

an evidentiary hearing on DHS’s motion and concluded that the settlement agreement 

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was impracticable under Pennsylvania contract law and discharged each party’s 

obligation of performance. Although it noted that “[the Hoffmans’] conduct has not made 

it easy for DHS,” App. 018, the District Court did “not reach the issue as to whether the 

Hoffmans breached the settlement agreement for failure to cooperate with DHS.” App.

020 n.6. The Hoffmans appealed.

1

II2

On appeal, the Hoffmans argue that the District Court erred in concluding that the 

settlement agreement is impracticable under Pennsylvania contract law.3 We agree with 

the Hoffmans that impracticability is a looser-than-ideal fit for the facts of this case. 

Although we recognize that the District Court may have intended to apply the related 

doctrine of mutual mistake of fact, we decline to rule in the first instance whether a 

mutual mistake of fact existed here. For the reasons below, the District Court erred in 

holding that the agreement was impracticable.

Under Pennsylvania contract law, impossibility of performance “means not only 

strict impossibility but impracticability because of extreme and unreasonable difficulty, 

1 The District Court had subject matter jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 and we have 

jurisdiction over its final judgment under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

2 We review “a district court’s findings of fact for clear error and its conclusions of law 

de novo.” VICI Racing, LLC v. T-Mobile USA, Inc., 763 F.3d 273, 282–83 (3d Cir. 2014). 

“For mixed questions of law and fact ‘we apply the clearly erroneous standard except that 

the District Court’s choice and interpretation of legal precepts remain subject to plenary 

review.’” Id. at 283 (quoting Gordon v. Lewistown Hosp., 423 F.3d 184, 201 (3d Cir. 

2005)). 

3 Both parties agree that Pennsylvania law applies.

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expense, or loss involved.” West v. Peoples First Nat’l Bank & Trust Co., 106 A.2d 427, 

432 (Pa. 1954) (citing Restatement (First) of Contracts § 454 (Am. L. Inst. 1932)). For an 

agreement to be impracticable, there must be a supervening event the non-occurrence of 

which was a basic assumption of the parties. Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 261, 

cmt. b (Am. L. Inst. 1981); 9795 Perry Hwy. Mgmt., LLC v. Bernard, 273 A.3d 1098, 

1104 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2022) (quoting the Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 261).

Traditionally, the doctrine of impracticability has been applied in three types of cases: (1) 

cases involving the “supervening death or incapacity of a person necessary for 

performance”; (2) cases involving the “supervening destruction of a specific thing 

necessary for performance”; and (3) cases involving a “supervening prohibition or 

prevention by law.” Restatement (Second) Contracts § 261, cmt. a. 

As the Hoffmans note, the obstacle encountered here—the parties’ inability to 

locate a suitable third-party provider capable of delivering care consistent with the terms 

of the agreement—does not fall neatly into any of those traditional categories. The 

Hoffmans also correctly observe that there is no “supervening event” of the sort regularly 

required for an agreement to be found impracticable. DHS has not argued, for instance,

that the number of suitable providers was reduced by an unforeseen event like a sudden

economic downturn or new burdensome regulations. Rather, the District Court essentially 

concluded that although the settlement agreement assumed the existence of a provider 

able to deliver 24/7 care to Kimberly in a one-person residential setting no more than 10 

miles from her parents’ home, experience has demonstrated the error of that assumption: 

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[I]t was a basic assumption of all parties to the settlement agreement that there 

were satisfactory service providers in the community. Not any possible provider 

would do. The terms of the settlement agreement were quite specific. The provider

must be one which “has experience in serving people with Autism Spectrum 

Disorder,” to say nothing of having to provide 24-hour services in a one-person 

residence within a narrow geographic area. In drafting the settlement agreement, 

the parties provided aggressive deadlines for DHS to identify and recommend 

service providers for the Hoffmans. This confirms that all parties believed such 

providers to be ready and able to accept this responsibility. The assumption of the 

parties turned out not to be well-founded.

App. 017 (quoting App. 20g); see also App. 018–19 (“It is clear that after more than 

eight years of continued effort by DHS and the Hoffmans to find acceptable providers, 

none has been found or is likely to be found that meets the stringent demands of the 

settlement agreement.”).

The District Court draws our attention to two cases where courts found a contract

to be impracticable under Pennsylvania contract law. A close reading of those cases, 

however, reinforces our impression that impracticability is too loose a fit for the facts of 

this case. In Litman v. Peoples Natural Gas Co., an intermediate state appellate court held 

that a contract for the sale of gas between a buyer and gas company was impracticable 

after Pennsylvania’s public utility commission prohibited the sale of gas beyond a 

company’s peak capacity. 449 A.2d 720, 724–25 (Pa. Super. 1982). There, the court’s 

impracticability finding was based on the supervening “legal[] preclu[sion] from 

providing the gas service.” Id. at 725.

4 Next, in Specialty Tires of America, a federal 

4

In Litman the buyer had requested gas service in the fall of 1974, but the supervening

illegality was an order of the Public Utility Commission issued on February 15, 1972. 

Litman, 449 A.2d at 722. Although the 1972 order preceded the 1974 agreement, it 

appears that the 1972 order did not become effective as to the gas company in question

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district court held that a contract for the sale of unique goods between a buyer and seller 

was impracticable under Pennsylvania law after a third party asserted a possessory 

interest in the goods to be sold. Specialty Tires of Am., Inc. v. CIT Grp./Equip. Fin., Inc., 

82 F. Supp. 2d 434, 436, 440–41 (W.D. Pa. Feb. 4, 2000). Again, the court’s 

impracticability finding was based on the supervening “interference by third parties with 

a specific chattel necessary to the carrying out of the agreement.” Id. at 440. The court 

explained that:

[the buyer had] inspected, and bid for, certain identified, used presses . . . [that] 

[a]ll parties believed that [the seller] was the owner of the presses and was entitled 

to their immediate possession . . . [and that] [n]either [the buyer nor the seller] had 

any reason to believe that [a third party] would subsequently turn an about-face 

and assert a possessory interest in the presses.

Id. at 441. 

In sum, Litman, Specialty Tires of America, and the Second Restatement

reinforce our impression that impracticability under Pennsylvania law is only 

appropriate in cases dealing with the “occurrence of an event the non-occurrence of 

which was a basic assumption on which the contract was made.” 9795 Perry Hwy. 

Mgmt., 273 A.3d at 1104 (quoting the Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 261).

Because neither party here argued that a supervening event rendered their ability to 

until January of 1975 when the gas company reached its peak capacity. Id.; see also 

Kasemer v. Nat’l Fuel Gas Distrib. Corp., 421 A.2d 226, 227 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1980) 

(describing how a similar order issued to another gas company on February 1, 1972, did 

not become effective until April 1, 1974, when that gas company reached its peak 

capacity); Leveto v. Nat’l Fuel Gas Distrib. Corp., 366 A.2d 270, 272 (Pa Super. Ct. 

1976) (same).

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perform impracticable, we hold that the District Court erred in applying the doctrine 

of impracticability. 

* * *

For the reasons stated above, we will vacate and remand for further proceedings.

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