It wasn’t long ago that force majeure was commonly perceived as insignificant boilerplate language added to the end of an event contract. Then 2020 and a global pandemic hit, and the provision was suddenly viewed as an instrumental clause that could shield event hosts from legal action as a sea of cancellations was sweeping the industry.
Now four years later, in the wake of a U.S. Court of Appeals verdict, a new precedent for event contracts may have been set, as MeetingsNet reports.
Earlier this month, the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled in favor of Avantax Wealth Management, officially allowing the company to cancel a 1,200-person conference at Marriott’s Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Tennessee without penalty. The court determined that force majeure, which can be triggered in the event of unforeseen “Acts of God,” was applicable because of the prospective impossibility of holding the event as planned, given the COVID restrictions in place in 2021 when the event was scheduled to take place.
Here’s the critical part: the court made its ruling based on the timing of the event cancellation, not the date of the event itself. The decision could help pave the way for more common-sense interpretations of force majeure, which has historically had a narrow scope of application.
And moving forward, marketers may have more legal leeway to cancel an event if they have a reasonable cause at the time of cancellation, even if circumstances change later on.
