LONDON: In a landmark ruling, a Canadian judge has declared that a simple thumbs-up emoji carries the same legal weight as a traditional signature.
The ruling came as a farmer was ordered to pay a hefty C$82,000 ($61,461) for failing to deliver on a contract he had approved with the digital symbol, according to The Guardian on Thursday.
“This court readily acknowledges that a thumbs-up 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,’” the judge wrote.
The case recently unfolded at the Court of King’s Bench in Saskatchewan, Canada, after grain buyer South West Terminal had reached out to clients via text message in March 2021.
The group was seeking to purchase 86 tonnes of flax at a price of C$17 ($12) per bushel.
Kent Mickleborough, the buyer from South West Terminal, claimed to have had a phone conversation with farmer Chris Achter, after which he sent Achter a text message containing an image of the flax contract to be delivered in November and asked him to confirm the agreement.
Achter texted back a thumbs-up emoji. But when November came around, he did not deliver the promised flax and prices for the crop had increased, leading to a dispute over the interpretation of the emoji response.
Mickleborough argued that the thumbs-up emoji was Achter’s acceptance of the contract’s terms, pointing to past contracts that had been confirmed via text message.
Achter, on the other hand, contended that the emoji was merely an acknowledgment of receiving the contract via text.
“I deny that he accepted the thumbs-up emoji as a digital signature of the incomplete contract. I did not have time to review the Flax Contract and merely wanted to indicate that I did receive his text message,” Achter said.
During the trial, Achter’s lawyer even objected to questioning about the thumbs-up emoji’s meaning, stating that his client “is not an expert in emojis.”
Justice Timothy Keene lamented that the case “led the parties to a far-flung search for the equivalent of the Rosetta Stone in cases from Israel, New York State and some tribunals in Canada, etc. to unearth what a thumbs-up emoji means,” referring to the definition of the symbol mentioned in dictionary.com.
The judge also dismissed defense arguments saying that the use of emojis appear “to be the new reality in Canadian society” and that this decision underscores the need for courts to adapt to modern communication methods.
