"Maybe I'm getting old, but it seems so foolish to apply legal power to a picture of a thumbs up when an eggplant colloquially means "penis" and a leaf means "weed".
So we can agree that some emoji hold well-understood meanings. In the same way that some letters strung together can hold meanings. Any reasonable person would understand the meaning of a thumbs-up emoji in response to "please confirm flax contract" (and no other response).
The precedent, if anything, is acknowledging that people can, and do, communicate with emojis.
If the farmer had typed, "got it", that could either be an acknowledgement of receipt or an expression of understanding, and the thumbs-up is used the same way.
Contract agreements need to be explicit. Allowing someone to use "gotchas" to lock people into contractual obligations is abusive af.
They actually don't. Courts have to grapple with poorly documented agreements all the time. They do so by hearing arguments from both sides and looking at context for clues as to the parties' intentions.
You can argue that a society where all contracts have to be spelled out in writing would be a better society, but it's not the society we live in and never has been. Making up a rule like this now would be hugely disruptive as it would mean that many agreements that were enforceable yesterday are unenforceable today.
Using "gotchas" to wriggle out of contractual obligations because the market has turned against you is similarly abusive.
You are talking about ambiguous wording in contact language, which is very different than it being ambiguous whether someone was entering into a contract or not. The latter is not a thing; both parties have to reasonably understand they are entering into a contract for it to be valid.
It can be implicit acceptance (such as paying a cash for something without first signing anything), but the action that constitutes entering the contract must be clearly-defined.
> You are talking about ambiguous wording in contact language, which is very different than it being ambiguous whether someone was entering into a contract or not. The latter is not a thing
Of course it's a thing? There are loads of cases that turn on the question of whether a contract has been formed (and specifically whether an offer has been accepted).
> both parties have to reasonably understand they are entering into a contract for it to be valid.
To be honest, my initial impression was that the only reasonable interpretation of a thumbs up emoji sent in response to a text asking to confirm contract terms is that it is an acceptance of the terms. I see that you and others disagree, which is fair enough - maybe there is room for a different interpretation. Then it falls on the court to decide what the intentions of the parties actually were, on the balance of probabilities. Here, the court (having access to more background information than either of us) has concluded that the parties probably intended there to be a contract.
> It can be implicit acceptance (such as paying a cash for something without first signing anything), but the action that constitutes entering the contract must be clearly-defined.
The action in this case is very well-defined - it is the sending of a thumbs up emoji. The question is what was intended by it. There is nothing uniquely ambiguous about emojis - law libraries are full of cases where the court has to interpret ambiguous actions, or written or spoken words. There is not, and never has been, a rule that communication in a medium that is capable of ambiguity cannot be the basis of a valid contract.
> The action in this case is very well-defined - it is the sending of a thumbs up emoji. The question is what was intended by it.
Which makes it not clearly-defined as intending to enter a contract.
The action of sending an emoji, unlike handing someone cash or signing a contract, is not an action that inherently implies entering into an agreement for exchange of goods and services.
If you're being honest, you and I both know that that is not how emojis are used. So to carve this out and go, "oh yeah, that is enough to constitute an implicit acceptance of contract terms" is insane.
If I post "You will send me $50." on Twitter and someone likes it (which also involves responding with a thumbs-up emoji), are they then obligated to send me money?
The law is not computer code. Ambiguous situations exist. Intent matters. We have judges to (usually) sort it all out in a reasonable manner.
Trying to get off the hook of a contract on such a frivolous technicality was bound to end poorly for the plaintiff. I can see right through their intent, and surely a judge can, too. It’s a grift, and probably a premeditated one at that.
So we can agree that some emoji hold well-understood meanings. In the same way that some letters strung together can hold meanings. Any reasonable person would understand the meaning of a thumbs-up emoji in response to "please confirm flax contract" (and no other response).
The precedent, if anything, is acknowledging that people can, and do, communicate with emojis.