Be careful when you reply to a text with the thumbs up emoji 👍, as it could mean that you’re agreeing to a legally binding contract—at least, according to a Canadian judge in a recent court ruling. In a case from last month that happened in Saskatchewan, Canada, a judge has determined that the thumbs up emoji is just as good as a signature.
The issue started when a grain buyer from Canadian company South West Terminal sent out a text message to a number of his clients in March 2021, saying that the company wanted to buy 86 tonnes of the crop flax at CAD17 per bushel. Farmer Chris Achter would then speak with a representative from South West Terminal, with the rep then proceeding to send him a picture of a contract, along with a message asking him to confirm the flax contract. Achter only responded with a thumbs up emoji 👍.
According to the contract sent in the image, the flax was to be delivered by Achter to South West Terminal by November 2021. However, by the time November rolled around, Achter didn’t send the flax over to South West Terminal, and by then flax prices had risen too. This let to a dispute between them, with the South West Terminal rep highlighting previous contracts confirmed via text message, while Achter says he sent the thumbs up 👍 only to indicate that he had received the contract, not that he was agreeing to it.
Eventually, the dispute led to a court case. The judge though was on the side of South West Terminal, stating that in his opinion the signature requirement for the contract was met when Achter sent the thumbs up emoji 👍. Justice Timothy Keene wrote:
“This court readily acknowledges that a 👍 emoji is a non-traditional means to “sign” a document but nevertheless under these circumstances this was a valid way to convey the two purposes of a “signature” – to identify the signator and as I have found above – to convey Achter’s acceptance of the flax contract.
I therefore find that under these circumstances that the provisions … have been met and the flax contract is therefore enforceable,” – Justice Timothy Keene
Eventually, Achter would be ordered to pay CAD82,000 (~RM286,027.30) due to not fulfilling the contract. Keene was also quick to dismiss the argument that by allowing the thumbs up emoji to mean accepting a contract that it would open up the flood gates for ‘all sorts of cases’ when it comes to interpretations of various emojis such as the fist bump 🤜 or the handshake emoji 🤝. Instead, he says that the courts should not stop the tide of technology, with the rise of the use of emojis ‘the new reality in Canadian society’.
