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Comment by hapless | Hacker News Reader

Judging from the article alone, this seems like a triumph for common sense. When a guy with the title of Vice President promises you money, in writing, you should be able to rely on that promise.

The defendants tried a variety of lame excuses for why they should not be held to their promises, and the court preferred the common sense interpretation of the conversation.

Bravo!

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An argument could be made that IM, while written in form, is actually oral communication due to its characteristics. In fact, many linguicist consider IM and texts as verbal communication.

> many linguicist consider IM and texts as verbal communication

All linguists consider IM and texts as verbal communication{1}. The same for books, magazines, and websites: the word "verbal" generally just means "using words." Non-verbal would mean communicating without using words--such as pointing your finger, taking an item from the shelf, or giving a suggestive look.

You really mean "oral" versus "written."

It's not just pedantry; in cases like this the difference between "verbal" and "oral" is part of what is at stake. And for any startup, it's important to understand the legal language in agreements you make. The term "verbal agreement" has become so abused by the media, but it still makes a difference among lawyers (who might one day control the fate of that contract you signed).

{1} A smiley-face in a text or IM is borderline, but I assume you mean something like "NO LIMIT!" from OP.

One of the accepted meanings of "verbal" is "spoken, rather than written" [1].

[1] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/verbal

Actually in some countries an oral agreement is as binding as a written.

Actually, if someone promises you a million dollars verbally, then in common law you can rely on that promise (subject to many caveats and details, IANAL etc). In fact you might be able to rely on it in several ways -- contract law, estoppel law etc.

To avoid he-said/she-said, many business contracts include a written "no-verbals clause", saying in essence that the contract can't be amended except in writing.

This is necessary because contractual relationships do not need to be written. The elements which the law pattern matches to say "this is a contract" do not require "must be written down somewhere" (though again, there are exceptions - for example many jurisdictions have legislation requiring property contracts to be in writing). For example, when you buy a stick of gum, you have negotiated, agreed to and executed a contract with an agent of the seller (the clerk). Contracts are largely invisible in every day life, but they exist. The decision to write them down is a risk-management exercise, where contract parties realise that the cost of settling disputes about verbal disputes is higher than the cost of signing a written contract.

In this case the common sense has been to rule that an IM message was "writing", thus it was not treated by the no-verbals clause, thus it successfully amended the original contract.

Now currently these modification clauses are blacklisting based. You name what you won't count as modifying the contract. If it hasn't happened already, a smart lawyer will look for a whitelisting approach, where you list what will count in future. So instead of "no verbal, no IM, no twitter, no currently-unforeseen-service-X", you'll get "on paper only".

Again, I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice etc etc.

awesome!

Downvoters who didn't get the memo, this is an apropos quotation from the article. The million dollars actually turned on this phrase.

But it adds nothing to the conversation here.

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