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A court case in Swift Current that concluded last month could set the precedent around emojis being used for legally binding contracts.
The contract between South West Terminal (plaintiff) and Achter Land & Cattle Ltd. (defendant) was completed via text message on the afternoon of March 26, 2021, for the delivery of 87 metric tonnes of flax. The delivery timeframe was set for November 1, 2021, and November 30, 2021, but the product never came.
SWT then sued the business that has a registered office in Swift Current for $82,200.21 plus interest and costs for breaching the agreement.
In court, SWT shared they had sent Achter Land & Cattle Ltd. the contract by text message asking for confirmation, to which the defendant replied with a simple "👍".
The plaintiff argued the reply was similar to past agreed-upon contracts (from 2020) which received responses such as "Looks good", "Ok", and "Yup". All three of these contracts for durum wheat were fulfilled.
While the defendant said that the emoji answer was to show that the contract was received and not to be taken as a confirmation of the deal.
After hearing both sides of the argument Justice T.J. Keene sided with SWT and provided a bit of insight into the emoji used.
"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."