In March 2021, a grain buyer in Saskatchewan telephoned a farmer with whom they had been conducting business for nine years. They agreed upon the sale of eighty-seven tonnes of flax seed at seventeen dollars per bushel, for delivery in November. The buyer completed their company’s contract, signed it by hand, photographed it, and sent it to the farmer’s mobile phone with a five-word message: please confirm flax contract.
The farmer replied with an emoji: 👍.
November arrived and the flax was not delivered. The price of flax had risen significantly since March, so the buyer was compelled to purchase it on the market at a higher cost and sued for the difference. The farmer defended the claim by stating that the thumbs-up did not signify acceptance of the contract, but merely that the message had been received and that, in any event, a valid signature was lacking because the province’s Sale of Goods Act requires a signed document. Justice T. J. Keene of the Saskatchewan court ruled in June 2023 that a contract existed, that the emoji served as acceptance, and that it fulfilled the function of a signature. He ordered the farmer to pay eighty-two thousand two hundred Canadian dollars.
The news travelled globally with the obvious headline: an emoji counts as a signature. That headline is false, or at the very least, incomplete.
The press conflated the figures. The contract was valued at approximately fifty-eight thousand dollars. The eighty-two thousand awarded in the judgment is not a fine for sending an emoji: it represents the damages, the difference between what the buyer would have paid under the contract and the cost of replacing the flax once the market had risen. The emoji was not the offence. It was evidence that an agreement existed which was subsequently breached.
Regarding the signature, the court was far more cautious than the headlines suggest. It did not state that a thumbs-up emoji legally signifies 'I accept'. It applied the classic criterion for contract formation: what a reasonable person with knowledge of all the background would understand. And the background was as follows. The two companies had been trading since 2012, with fifteen to twenty deferred delivery contracts. Since 2020, due to remote working, they had concluded deals exactly in this manner: a telephone call, a photograph of the signed contract, a message requesting confirmation, and the farmer responding with a 'looks good', a 'yup', or an 'ok'. And subsequently, he complied. Every single time.
In that context, the thumb was not an isolated sign requiring deciphering. It occupied the exact place that those three words occupied in that relationship. The judge articulated it thus: a reasonable person with knowledge of all the background would objectively understand that the parties had reached an agreement, just as they had done on numerous previous occasions. Regarding the signature, the judge distinguished between the drawing itself and the functions a signature serves, which are two: to identify the person consenting and to demonstrate that consent. The emoji originated from the farmer's usual telephone number, no one disputed that he had sent it, and it was a response to an unequivocal request to confirm a contract. The court acknowledged that it was a non-traditional means of signing a document and concluded that, in those circumstances, it served both purposes.
The farmer appealed, and in December 2024 the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal upheld the judgment, albeit by a majority of two judges to one, which indicates that the matter was not trivial. In July 2025, the Supreme Court of Canada refused leave to appeal, rendering the judgment final. The Supreme Court did not rule that an emoji is a signature. It simply declined to hear the matter, which is a different proposition.
What this case demonstrates is nothing new regarding emojis; it is something quite ancient regarding signs. The thumbs-up did not, and does not, possess an inherent legal meaning. It acquired a precise one because two individuals had spent years using minimal gestures with a perfectly stable meaning between them. Custom had established the value of the sign before the sign appeared. Had the same emoji been sent by a stranger, in response to an ambiguous message, without prior dealings, the result would likely have been the opposite, and the court of appeal itself expressly rejected the notion that its decision rendered any emoji a signature.
Thus, the court did not interpret a pictogram. It interpreted a relationship. And it decided that within that relationship, that gesture meant what both parties knew it to mean, even if it would have meant nothing elsewhere.
The judge added a frequently cited remark: that the court cannot, and should not, attempt to stem the tide of technology and common usage, as this appears to be the new reality of Canadian society and the courts must be prepared for what follows with emojis and similar phenomena. It is a compelling statement, yet it has been interpreted as if the law were yielding to a novelty. What occurred was, rather, the standard procedure: a court verified what a sign signified among those who used it. The novelty lay in the drawing. The reasoning is centuries old.
On the open conversation
This text originates from a verified case: South West Terminal Ltd. v Achter Land & Cattle Ltd. (2023), in which a Saskatchewan court determined that a thumbs-up emoji, sent in response to the request 'Please confirm flax contract', constituted acceptance and fulfilled the function of a signature. I must correct two points conflated by media coverage: the judgment of 82,200 Canadian dollars was not a fine for the emoji, but rather damages for the breach of a contract worth approximately 58,000; and neither that court nor the court of appeal established that an emoji is always equivalent to a signature. I maintain that the decisive factor was the prior relationship: the parties had spent years concluding contracts with 'ok' or 'yup', and the thumbs-up occupied that same position. The sign did not signify in isolation; it signified within a custom. Should anyone wish to contribute from the perspective of contract law, linguistics, or digital communication, this notebook remains open.
Sources
South West Terminal Ltd. v Achter Land & Cattle Ltd., 2023 SKKB 116, Court of King’s Bench for Saskatchewan, Justice T. J. Keene, 8 June 2023: judgment of 82,200.21 Canadian dollars plus interest and costs. Citations: 'a reasonable bystander knowing all of the background would come to the objective understanding that the parties had reached consensus ad idem'; '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”'.
The facts: contract for 87 metric tonnes of flax seed at 17 dollars per bushel, delivery in November 2021; photograph of the signed contract sent with the message 'Please confirm flax contract'. Commercial relationship since 2012, with 15-20 prior contracts confirmed by brief messages ('looks good', 'ok', 'yup').
Achter Land & Cattle Ltd. v South West Terminal Ltd., 2024 SKCA 115, Court of Appeal for Saskatchewan, 16 December 2024: appeal dismissed by majority (2 to 1), with a dissenting opinion from Justice Barrington-Foote.
The Supreme Court of Canada denied leave to appeal on 24 July 2025, with costs, without ruling on the merits.