TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Stacey Shrader Joslin on Jul 14, 2023

A Canadian judge has ruled a farmer’s thumbs-up emoji constituted approval of a contract texted to him by a grain buyer, the ABA Journal reports. The farmer, Chris Achter, argued that the emoji merely indicated he had received the contract, not that he agreed to its terms. Under the court’s ruling Achter was ordered to pay $82,200 in Canadian dollars for breach of contract. The amount equals about $61,000 in U.S. dollars. Santa Clara University law professor Eric Goldman tells the New York Times that the precise meanings of emojis in both the United States and Canada depend on the facts of the case. “This case won’t definitively resolve what a thumbs-up emoji means,” he said. “But it does remind people that using the thumbs-up emoji can have serious legal consequences.”