Be careful before you lightly send another thumbs-up emoji: A Canadian court has ruled that the ubiquitous symbol can assert that a person is officially entering into a contract.

The ruling highlights what the judge called the “new reality of Canadian society,” which courts will have to grapple with as more people use heart, smiley and fire emojis to sing. express, even in the context of serious business or personal disputes.

The case focused on whether a Saskatchewan farmer agreed to sell 87 metric tonnes of flaxseed to a grain buyer in 2021. The buyer signed the contract and sent a photo to the farmer, who responded with a thumbs up emoji.

The farmer, Chris Achter, claimed that the “thumbs up emoji only confirmed that he had received the flaxseed contract” and did not confirm that he accepted its terms, according to the decision. He said he understood the text to mean that “the completed contract will be faxed or emailed to you later for you to review and sign.”

Grain buyer Kent Mickleborough said when he texted the photo of the contract to Achter’s phone, he wrote: “Please confirm flaxseed contract”. So when Achter responded with a thumbs-up emoji, Mickleborough said he understood Achter “agreed to the contract” and that it was “his way” of signing it.

The judge noted that Achter and Mickleborough had a long-standing business relationship and that in the past when Mickleborough had sent Achter contracts for durum wheat, Achter had replied with a terse “I see that”, “Okay” or “Yeah”.

According to Judge TJ Keene of the King’s Court in Saskatchewan, both parties undoubtedly understood that these concise answers were a confirmation of the contract and “not just an acknowledgment of receipt of the contract” by Achter. And each time, Achter had delivered the grain as scheduled and had been paid.

So Keene determined last month that a valid contract existed between the parties and that Achter breached that agreement by not delivering the flaxseed. The judge ordered Achter to pay damages in the amount of CAN$82,200, which is equivalent to US$61,000.

“This court recognizes that an 👍 emoji is a non-traditional way to “sign” a document; however, in these circumstances it was a valid means of conveying the two purposes of a “signature”: to identify the signer” as Achter, as he was sending text messages from his cell phone number, and “to convey the Buyer’s acceptance of the linen contract Keene wrote.

In issuing this opinion, Keene quoted the definition from Dictionary.com thumbs up emoji: “used to express assent, approval, or encouragement in digital communications, especially in Western cultures”.

“I’m not sure of the authority of this definition, but it seems to fit my understanding in everyday use, even as a newcomer to the tech world,” Keene wrote in her ruling.

Achter said in a July 6 interview that he “of course” disagreed with the decision and declined to comment further. His attorney, Jean-Pierre Jordaan, did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

According to the ruling, Jordaan warned that allowing a thumbs-up emoji to signify agreement on a contract would “open the door” to all sorts of cases where courts are asked to define the meaning of other emojis, such as a handful of hand or a fist.

Josh Morrison, a partner at the law firm that represented Mickleborough, declined to comment on the decision, but told the magazine Canadian lawyer that it was a “really interesting case, a classic question for a law school”.

Laura E. Little, a professor at Temple University School of Law, called the decision “an extraordinary sign of the new world of communication when emoji can function to activate the mechanism of creating a contract.”

Julian Nyarko, an adjunct professor at Stanford University School of Law, said the legal test of an agreement to a contract focuses on how a reasonable person would interpret the signals given by both parties, adding that in some cases, a verbal agreement was sufficient.

“In most cases, a reasonable person, if they see a thumbs-up emoji, would think the person sending it wants the contract,” Nyarko said. “That fits pretty well with the legal doctrine that the courts have established.”

Still, the precise meaning of the emojis will remain an open question in the United States and Canada, depending on the facts of each case, said Eric Goldman, a law professor and co-director of New York Law’s High-Tech Law Institute. Santa Clara University School.

Goldman, who counted 45 court convictions in the United States who made reference to the thumbs-up emoji, noted that some young people use the emoji sarcastically or insincere Others simply use it to acknowledge receipt of a message, like a verbal “uha”. In some Middle Eastern countries, he said, the gesture is offensive.

“This case won’t definitively settle what the thumbs-up emoji means,” Goldman said, “but it does remind people that using this emoji can have serious legal consequences.”

Michael Levenson joined The Times in December 2019. He was previously a reporter for the Boston Globe, where he covered local, state and national news and politics.