OTTAWA, July 7 (Reuters) – A Canadian farmer has been ordered to pay more than CA$82,000 (US$61,784) in damages over an emoji mix-up, which a Saskatchewan judge resolved by ruling that an image containing Thumbs up is enough to accept contract terms.
Chris Achter, the owner of an agricultural business in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, had sent a thumbs-up emoji in response to a photo of a flax purchase agreement sent to him by a grain buyer in 2021.
Months later, when the time came for delivery, the buyer, who had been doing business with Achter for several years, did not receive the flax.
That sparked a dispute that led to “a wide-ranging search for the equivalent of the Rosetta Stone in cases from Israel, New York State and some courts in Canada” to find out what a “thumbs up” emoji means, so the June court ruling that surfaced in local media this week.
The buyer, South West Terminal, argued that the emoji implied acceptance of the terms of the contract, while Achter said it only used the thumbs-up image to indicate that it had received the contract, not to indicate its agreement .
In a summary judgement littered With 24 occurrences of the emoji, Judge TJ Keene said, “I’m satisfied on a probabilistic basis that Chris approved or approved the contract exactly as before, only this time he used a thumbs-up emoji.”
“I think the thumbs-up emoji coming from Chris and his unique phone fulfilled the signature requirement,” Keene said.
($1 = 1.3272 Canadian dollars)
Reporting by Ismail Shakil in Ottawa. Editing by Marguerita Choy
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