A year ago, as oil prices plummeted in the wake of a foreign price war and the economic and operational impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic began to manifest, attorneys around the country generated a flurry of legal analysis on the very old principle of force majeure. The Louisiana Civil Code calls this concept a “fortuitous event,” which, “at the time the contract was made, could not have been reasonably foreseen.”  La. Civ. Code art. 1875. The year continued to bring more developments that we did not foresee, including the record hurricane season that would impact Louisiana and the 2021 winter freeze that brought Houston to its knees. After a year of unique challenges, this presentation looks back (i) at how force majeure is generally understood in Louisiana and Texas, including important differences between how the two states approach force majeure, and (ii) how force majeure or other similar principles have been applied over the last year of case law.