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Comment by leakycap | Hacker News Reader

Recent Canadian court rulings have made me wonder if I live in an extremely US-system mindset; it is hard to understand the logic here.

The buyer was concerned about this transaction, it seems - they sent a message asking:

“please confirm flax contract”

In response they did not get a contract. They got a thumbs up. What's next, text a thumbs up to a car salesman who is trying to get you to agree to a deal and now you've signed the contract? Contracts have much more in them than a text message could convey. Perhaps I'm being to legalistic, but this is a court matter.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_contract

I think you have a Hollywood-system mindset, not a US-system mindset. Just because it doesn't have a signature on it doesn't mean it isn't a contract

In legal systems with some basis in English Common Law the idea of an implied contract is fairly common.

Lets I buy some service from you and we sign some one-off contract. The next year I text you ‘same again please’ - you provide the same service to me. A reasonable person would conclude that there is an implied contact to provide the services under the terms perviously agreed. I can’t argue that I don’t have to pay because we didn’t sign a new set of terms.

Or you give me a quote and terms to build a house. If I let you start building it for me (and you can prove that I gave that instruction) there is an implied contract based the proposed terms even if we don’t sign any paperwork.

In the judgement here it seems to be a simpler assertion that the thumbs up in the context of asking about previously sent terms constitutes acceptance.

A key detail here is that they had competed numerous similar transactions in same way.

This never would have been considered a contract in a normal scenario.

In a similar way in that text messages were used, but not the "same" because the thumbs up emoji had not been used in the past to express agreement.

No, this is how courts have always interpreted contracts.

Agreement can be given in a number of ways. Signatures and official documents are a way to safeguard said assent, but in the case of ambiguity courts have broad latitude to interpret thing in the right context.

I think the reasoning is that on balance the thumbs up is more likely considered an acceptance than not. The lack of follow up on the sellers side supports the interpretation that they accepted, because if they had any concerns then surely they would have raised them?

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