Rights The first thing you need to know about force majeure is that it is foreign and like a lot of foreign things in our law, it causes quite a lot of trouble. To be fair, this is mostly our fault in too often using the term without trying to give it a proper definition. force majeure is often seen in contracts as grounds to excuse failure to perform obligations, so it is important.<p></p><p> In an English case which looked at the French legal meaning, force majeure was described as something &amp;“independent of the will of man, and which is not in his power to control&amp;” although this does leave out one element of force majeure which most people would say is essential - namely that the event should also be unforeseen by the party in question or perhaps not reasonably foreseeable. It would be unusual for a party to state that he cannot perform his contract because night followed day - this being beyond his control. </p><p> If therefore we think of the term as describing events which are both unforeseen and beyond our control then we are pretty much there but it does still cause problems because contracts …