New York
CNN
 — 

A Canadian farmer owes $82,000 for breach of contract after using a “thumbs-up” emoji in a text.

According to court documents from the King’s Bench for Saskatchewan in March 2021, grain purchasers with South West Terminal, Ltd., sent a text message to grain suppliers wanting to buy flax for $17 per bushel for delivery in October, November, or December of that year. After phone calls with farmers Bob and Chris Achter, SWT drafted a contract for Chris Achter to sell SWT 86 metric tons of flax for $17 a bushel and deliver the flax in November.

The SWT rep signed the contract in ink and then sent a photo of the contract via cell phone to Chris Achter along with the message “Please confirm flax contract.”

Achter responded with a “thumbs-up” emoji, according to the documents.

Achter never delivered the flax in November 2021, according to the documents. By November, the price of flax was $41 per bushel.

The SWT representative said in court documents he had done at least four other contracts with Achter via text. He said the only difference this time was Achter responded with a “thumbs-up” emoji instead of “ok”, “yup” or “looks good.”

According to Achter in the court documents, he confirmed “the thumbs-up emoji simply confirmed that I received the Flax contract. It was not a confirmation that I agreed with the terms of the Flax Contract. The full terms and conditions of the Flax Contract were not sent to me, and I understood that the complete contract would fo