2023-07-09 17:24:00
Justice considered that by answering a thumbs up to a contract, a farmer had agreed to honor it. He was fined 56,000 euros.
By Nicolas Barreiro for Le Point The farmer had to deliver 87 tonnes of flax to his client. (Illustrative photo.) © MYCHELE DANIAU/AFP Published on 07/09/2023 at 5:24 p.m.
Is an emoji enough to accept a contract worth tens of thousands of dollars? Canadian justice has decided. Chris Achter, a farmer based in the state of Saskatchewan, gave a thumbs up to a grain buyer in March 2021. The latter had just sent him a contract for the delivery of 87 tons of flax. A contract that the farmer has never honored, because he claims to have never accepted it, reports The Parisian.
The court fined Chris Achter 82,200 Canadian dollars, or more than 56,000 euros, for failing to honor the contract. The plaintiffs considered that the thumbs up was equivalent to acceptance of the contract by the farmer. In his defense, he assured that this emoji did not mean his agreement, but simply that he had received the contract.
“Chris accepted the contract”
The judge justifies his opinion in view of the messages that Chris Achter sent to conclude his contracts. He used terms such as “I’m fine”, “OK” or “Yep” in response to contracts. Messages just as brief as the emoji, for contracts that he had however honored in 2020.
Justice therefore concluded “that these words were the confirmation of the contract and not a simple acknowledgment of receipt of the contract”. “I am satisfied on a balance of probabilities that Chris accepted the contract as he had done before, except this time he used a thumbs-up emoji,” the magistrate explained in his ruling.
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