The Supreme Court of Canada has dismissed a request to hear an appeal from Achter Land and Cattle regarding an earlier court decision that found a thumbs-up emoji served as an agreement to a grain contract. South West Terminal launched a claim for damages after Achter Land and Cattle failed to deliver on the contract.
We reached out to lawyers on both sides to get their reaction to the decision. South West Terminal’s (SWT) Lawyer Josh Morrison, a partner with MLT Aikens, was the only one able to get back to us by print time.
Morrison says the case stems back to 2021.
"During the pandemic, South West Terminal was transacting business as usual, and they advertised for a specific price for flax. Achter Cattle and Land replied, indicating that they were interested. Achter Cattle and Land had entered into several contracts with South West Terminal electronically. Wherein Southwest Terminal would text a picture of the contract with the words ‘Please confirm contract.’ Achter Cattle and Land would reply back ‘Yep, OK, looks good.’ So, on this flax contract, instead of using Yup, OK, looks good Mr. Achter replied with a thumbs-up emoji. And later the price of flax skyrocketed, Mr. Achter decided not to deliver on the contract, and so South West Terminal brought a claim for damages.”
In 2023, Judge Keene, Court of Kings Bench, after hearing the case, determined there was a contract between the two parties.
Morrison says the court found in SWT 's favor, determining that Mr. Achter routinely entered into contracts using these short electronic messages to signify his intention to be bound by the contract.
“That happened on a number of occasions before and after this flax contract, and so that was really compelling for the court.”
He notes they (SWT) were successful before the Court of King's Bench and later the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal.
“The one judge dissented because he found that although the parties clearly intended to enter into a contract, the sale of goods act in Saskatchewan requires a signature and he determined that a casual electronic communication in that circumstance was not a signature for the purposes of ‘Evidencing the Contract.’ So, one judge would have decided to dismiss South West Terminal’s claim, but the majority sided with us.”
After that, Achter took the case to the Supreme Court of Canada, which has now dismissed the case.
Morrison notes that the Supreme Court of Canada only hears cases of national importance.
"The thumbs-up emoji case was international news; I got calls from Australia, India, the New York Times, all over the place. So it was a really interesting case, but from a legal perspective it wasn't that novel. There wasn't any fundamental legal issues at play, nothing that the court needed to clarify in terms of the law. It really just applied a very well-worn set of legal principles to the fact pattern to resolve the case, and the Supreme Court of Canada obviously declined to hear the case."
Morrison says what this decision really stands for is that the law will keep up with technology and every new form of communication, noting in the past it was fax machines, then e-mail, text messages, and social media.
“It's not every thumbs-up emoji that's going to make a contract, but when you have the kind of pattern of dealing that Mr. Achter engaged in, the thumbs-up emoji was clearly an intention to enter into a contract. On behalf of Southwest Terminal, a deal is a deal, and we're just glad that the Court of King's Bench and the Court of Appeals saw it that way, and we are not surprised that the Supreme Court of Canada wasn't interested. This is a very unique fact pattern, and we're glad that justice prevailed.”
Achter Land and Cattle is now responsible for paying out the contract and court expenses of over $82,000.