Legal Definitions - nondelivery

Nondelivery refers to the failure to transfer, convey, or hand over something that was expected or promised to be delivered. This term is frequently used in contracts and commercial transactions where one party has an obligation to provide goods, documents, or even certain services to another, but fails to do so.

Here are some examples illustrating nondelivery:

• Imagine a small business owner orders a specialized piece of machinery from a manufacturer, with an agreed-upon delivery date of October 15th. When October 15th passes without the machinery arriving at the business, and the manufacturer provides no explanation or update, this constitutes nondelivery. The manufacturer failed to transfer the physical goods as promised in the sales agreement.

• Consider a situation where a law firm sends critical legal documents via a postal service to a client, expecting them to arrive by a specific deadline. If the documents are lost in transit and never reach the client, preventing them from meeting their legal obligations, this is an instance of nondelivery. The postal service failed to convey the documents to their intended recipient.

• Suppose an individual purchases an online course that promises immediate access to video lessons and downloadable materials upon payment. After completing the payment, the individual finds they cannot access any of the course content, and no access links or login credentials are provided. This scenario represents nondelivery, as the digital content and access, which were the promised "goods" of the transaction, were not transferred to the buyer.