Saskatchewan Court of Appeal: 
Supreme Court of Canada : 
In general, I’d say no, but this specific case, I think, is going to be muddied by this line:
Achter had sold grain to SWT since about 2012, according to court documents, and had responded with short phrases like “ok,” looks good," and “yup” to previous contracts, which were subsequently honoured.
I can see the judge allowing this. I think, over the years, I’ve heard cases of customers trying to back out of paying invoices on the grounds that they never signed for them and the judge siding with the business because the customer paid all the other unsigned invoices, so the lack of a signature shouldn’t suddenly be an issue this time.
This is why, as a business, I like vendors that are strict about getting my signature for deliveries. It makes the “You never delivered that, you never would’ve allowed that to be left without a signature” argument much stronger when I’m trying to explain to a vendor that they made a billing error.
I have a feeling, going forward, the company will followup a conversation like that with “great, I’m sending you a docusign link…”
Well, the moral of this story is, “Emoj what you mean, and mean what you emoj.”
Note: I couldn’t find a verb form of the word anywhere, so I created this one. LOL
That’s my thought as well. From the CBC article, sounds like that will be the respondent’s argument why the SCC shouldn’t take this case. Turns on the particular facts and history between the parties, not a major point of law.
A contract can be established with a handshake or verbal assent so why not an emoji?
And, in principle, a signature is less a specific glyph than any mark made willingly by a party to a contract or document as an intentional sign of assent. A valid alternative to “sign this” is “make your mark”.
An emoji in the right context is a mark of agreement.
I thought Saskatchewan farmers carved all their important legal documents into the side of a tractor.
Only in cases of imminent death.
Previous thread on-topic:
I would have said no in this case. There’s enough ambiguity in a thumbs-up emoji which makes it different than an “ok” or a “yup”. It could also mean “Received the contract”, or “Received the contract, will let you know”.
It reminds me of the true British movie called “Let Him Have It” where one of the robbers was convicted of murder and hanged for telling one of the other robbers during a botched warehouse robbery to “Let him have it!”, meaning surrender your gun to the policeman. But the other guy shot and killed the policeman. The first guy was convicted due to having said “Let him have it”.
So I think this is a key point. IANAL but as I understand it there is a concept of implied acceptance of a contract. Like if we draw up a contract, to say deliver you 10000 widgets at 10 cents each, I never actually sign it but go ahead and deliver the widgets and you go and use those widgets to make your thingamajigs. That’s implicitly accepting the contract
If you’d turned around and gone “wtf! We never agreed this” and sent the widgets back, that’s one thing. But by using the widgets you are implicitly saying you agreed to the contact even though we never actually signed it. So you are on the hook to give me 1000 bucks and I can enforce that in a court.
I didn’t notice anything in the links about any follow up from the emoji. It did say other contracts had been established with responses like “ok,” looks good," and “yup”. I’d say it’s certainly up to the court to decide if an emoji is an equivalent because this is not the body of the contract. I assume in the Great White North they do the same as we do here in the US and interpret ambiguity in the body of the contract in favor of the party that did not write the contract. I don’t know what we do in a case of an ambiguous indication of agreement like this.
Right, yes, the common law contra proferentem rule of contract law applies in Canada.
This is a tough one. I can see where arguments can be made for and against. If there is a track record of “ok,” “looks good,” and “yup,” then maybe a thumbs-up emoji is an indication of agreement.
But “ok,” “looks good,” and “yup” are words, not symbols. I’d like the SCC to take this one up; it would help shape online law, of course, but it would also add to the definition of what constitutes a contract.
(Don’t get me started on collections law based on a so-called contract. Listen, folks, if you’re loaning tens of thousands of dollars on a handshake—forget the handshake and get it in writing!)
Perhaps a myth, but hasn’t a thumbs up been used in some cultures to mean up yours? Just like the OK gesture can mean different things depending upon its orientation.
Someone could argue that a thumbs up meant fu no.
As I understand it a contract needs a ‘meeting of the minds’, meaning that each party understands that they are agreeing to the contract. When you sign a contract there is a understanding that you agree to the terms there and accept them, even if you didn’t read them.
However a thumbs up may also mean that they received it, but not necessarily that they agree to it.