Opinion ID: 1278110
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: plea of impossibility of performance

Text: The defense of impossibility of performance on account of illegality is not available to a promisor when the impossibility was due to his fault. Housing Authority of the City of Bristol East Tennessee Light & Power Co., 183 Va. 64, 72, 31 S.E.2d 273, 276 (1944). Whether Appalachian's failure to reduce the oral agreement to writing within a reasonable time prior to the date of the Commission's order was a breach of a contractual duty which contributed to impossibility of performance on account of illegality was a factual question which the jury resolved against Appalachian. Appalachian's argument that there was no evidence of what constituted a reasonable time is without merit. When a contract does not specify a time for performance, the law implies a reasonable time. Merriman Cover, Drayton & Leonard, 104 Va. 428, 51 S.E. 817 (1905). }[It] is well settled that it is for the jury to say what is a reasonable time, under all the circumstances of the case, under proper instructions from the court. Duke Norfolk & Western Ry., 106 Va. 152, 155, 55 S.E. 548, 549 (1906).