"In a summary judgement that contained 24 instances of the emoji, Judge T J Keene resolved the issue by ruling that a thumbs-up emoji is enough to accept contractual terms."
"I am satisfied on the balance of probabilities that Chris okayed or approved the contract just like he had done before except this time he used a thumbs-up emoji."
"In my opinion the signature requirement was met by the thumbs-up emoji originating from Chris and his unique cell phone," the judge said.
It's not dissimilar to a physical nod or thumbs up in an auction situation.
Should have done the contract on HN, the thumbs up would have been stripped.
Why people are wasting many millions of dollars to implement cryptographically-secure electronic signature systems, if a simple thumbs-up emoji is enogh? ;)
Some contarcts can be closed verbaly in-person, but this is not the case, because they didn't talked in-person, but over a remote digital medium.
Common Law system is flawed.
If you text :eggplant: to your wife, then you might get her pregnant!
Accepting you did enter the icon, and the screenshot is accurate, then saying you didn't mean it to be interpreted as an agreement is another matter.
I think this is where your digital signature wins.
But that's long form. Emojis on the other side are very short. It's a new medium and doesn't have a stable interpretation yet.
Also, any contract negotiation is a process (sometimes even a Saga ;) Plucking a single message out of a sequence of messages is wrong.
Chris Achter, the owner of a farming company in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, had sent a thumbs-up emoji in response to a photograph of a flax-buying contract from a grains buyer in 2021.
Sending a written contract should provide more than enough context to the counterpart.
The most obvious explanation is the confirmation of the recieval.
> Mr Achter said he used it only to indicate that he had received the contract, but not to indicate his agreement.
I also frequently have fat finger emojis in Slack, Discord or WhatsApp, now it's legally bounded?
I live in the country with the Common Law system, but even worse than in Canada, as the judges here don't care about the written contracts. The former President of the Supreme Court even said something like "I don't care what's written in the contract", and basically had arbitrary rulings based on his own understandings.
Because of that most tech companies here have an arbitration clause in contracts that all disputes will be resolved outside of our local jurisdiction. Usually in Delaware.
I would bet my business prospects that no court would conclude that a thumbs-up followed less than a minute later by a “disregard previous typo” message as binding acceptance.
This is not some trick “no backsies” situation, but rather a case where a pattern of short acceptance messages was continued, just in picture form.
Other than the defendant objecting after the fact, I think most reasonable people would look at the pattern of communication and reach the same conclusion the court did.
No. The judge decided based on the specific facts of this specific case that in this context the emoji meant that the contract was accepted.
You can read the judgement here: https://images.assettype.com/barandbench/2023-07/17ed50ce-4e...
quote: "What sets this case apart is the use of a thumbs up emoji “<thumbs up emoji>” and what that meant in the context of the specific facts of this law suit."
> The most obvious explanation is the confirmation of the recieval.
This was not the understanding of the judge on a balance of probabilities in this specific case.
This is the relevant quote from the judgement: "So in short, what we have is an uncontested pattern of entering into what both parties knew and accepted to be valid and binding deferred delivery purchase contracts on a number of occasions. It is important to note that each time Kent added to the offered contract “Please confirm terms of durum contract” and Chris did so by succinctly texting “looks good”, “ok” or “yup”. The parties clearly understood these curt words were meant to be confirmation of the contract and not a mere acknowledgement of the receipt of the contract by Chris. There can be no other logical or creditable explanation because the proof is in the pudding. Chris delivered the grain as contracted and got paid. There was no evidence he was merely confirming the receipt of a contract and was left just wondering about a contract."
Thus if you want to avoid accidentally accepting a contract by fat-fingering an emoji, then do not accept contracts with short words like "yup". Rather insist on more formality. Simple as that. If Chris would have said in previous occasions "that sounds about right, send it over as PDF, and I will send you back a signed PDF" that would have probably been enough to convince the judge that the simple thumbs up emoji was not meant as confirmation of receipt.
Yea, he said that. After the spot price of his commodity nearly tripled compared to when he accepted the contract several months earlier. And after half a decade of accepting similar contracts with similarly-terse replies.
> I also frequently have fat finger emojis in Slack, Discord or WhatsApp, now it's legally bounded?
I imagine that if he had quickly (within a day or so) followed up with "oops, fat-fingered that", the contract would have been voided.
Even a verbal agreement is legally binding. Of course, it is hard to prove such an agreement exists to others, so we create a record of the agreement.
If there is evidence that such agreement exists, then the contract is enforceable, and that is all that has happened here. Using a thumbs up emoji to indicate agreement may look a bit silly, but the intent is apparently clear.
Is there a legal standard for this? I like to imagine a legal dispute in front of a judge if the vehicle in question is or is not a total POS that can be sold on the spot.
* Any promises made in connection with marriage, including such gifts as an engagement ring.
* Contracts that cannot be completed in less than one year.
* Contracts for the sale of land—leases need not be covered unless they are for a year or more.
* Promises to pay an estate’s debt from the personal funds of the executor. However, promises to pay such debt from the estate's funds are not subject to the statute of frauds.
* Contracts for the sale of goods above a specific dollar amount, typically $500.
* A contract in which one person promises to pay the debt of another person is considered a surety and is subject to the statute of frauds.
So when I tongue in cheek reference a really bad car, I'm talking about a car whose value is under $500. :)
[1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/statute-of-frauds.asp
I have found this usage on legal websites, government websites and dictionaries. So while oral may be more accurate, it is still correct to say verbal contract.
People insist on formalities (of all kind) precisely in order to avoid these kind of lawsuits. Paying all those lawyers is not cheap.
> What's next?
It is not like this was some hapless chap who got suckered into a deal. They had a business relationship going on for years and they have agreed on similar deals with not much more than a thumbs up emoji.
> Common Law system is flawed.
What aspect of this story makes you think that?
It doesn't tell why you didn't answer: if you just didn't get around to answering yet or if you don't want to answer on purpose. (But of course it offers the suggestion of the latter. Hence "left me on read" being a thing where "no reply" is seen as an act of communication itself.)
But there is no situation in which it indicates approval.
So if anything, "double green check without any reply" could be interpreted as declining a contract offer. But even this would be a stretch, I think.
The more interesting case would be an X mark. While this is often interpreted as the opposite of a check mark there are contexts where it is affirmative. Best known example is probably election ballot papers. Not so well know nowadays is that the blind and illiterate used the X to sign contracts.
I don't think any average user would confuse the two and neither would a judge.