Baselines and defacto baselines & re-baselines - legal vs practical?

The approved original Project Baseline will always the legal baseline to be used unless an approved EOT has been placed which requires re-baseline to be approved with compliance on the approved EOT. If the project is behind and had been ask for recovery schedule, it does not mean that if will be use as a new baseline. It is a what if scenario to mitigate the delay and best-case scenario to bring the project back to schedule. A baseline cannot have a negative float as it was an indication that your project completion is not achievable. A recovery schedule may change the logic, re-phasing and may include acceleration on contractor’s cost. A comparison with current updated schedule vs recovery is only a what if scenario and not legally binding with the contract unless it is the approved re-baseline based on the approved EOT.

you would compare the current to the re-baseline hence the work RE-Baseline this is your new line in the sand in which progress should be measured against. 

What if it was never approved?  Just got lost in the shuffle?  Then the 1st update was approved.  Couldn't you consider either the baseline?  I think a baseline is better not updated but I think you could consider a partially updated schedule the baseline.  I understand you could force a contractor to back out the progress and re-submit but at some point you simply are better off moving on, in particular if the issues that occured are otherwise documented.