A Canadian judge has ruled that the popular “thumbs-up” emoji not only can be used as a contract agreement, but is just as valid as an actual signature.
I talked to a lawyer friend of mine. In this case the judge was right, but this precedent will probably be appealed in the future if there are more damages at stake
Like if some idiot exec at a company thumbs up emojis a bad deal and loses $10M
IANAL so I don't know anything about anything. But I think the subtext of this story is one of the little guy getting comically screwed by a bigger player. If the South West Terminal, with capacity for 52000 tonnes of grain, wants to swing their dick on a farmer over 86 tonnes of undelivered grain, they'll find a way to win. Regardless of the law, going after a guy over a thumbs up emoji is audacious, at least.
I expect that in the future, someone in the farmer's position with bigger stakes and more money to play with will bring on a herd of lawyers to throw down a thousand esoteric & byzantine arguments & get a win. Maybe that's unfounded pessimism, I don't know. You just don't seem to hear stories about rich people taking Ls like this.