It should be noted that it doesn't actually say anywhere that this 👍 emoji, had been used by this farmer to signal assent to contracts previously. What it does say in the article, is that they'd previously received contracts in this way via text before and fulfilled them.

However, personally I don't think that really makes a lot of difference, maybe some but not a lot. This court decision is not exactly a ruling that emojis are signatures so much as it's upholding the idea that there are forms of contract acceptance other than the traditional signing of a written contract and these exist for exactly reasons like these and to protect people from bad faith acceptance of contracts with the later intention to deny such acceptance.

Without the prior context of previous texts with or without emoji confirmation, this mightn't have stood, but with it, it makes perfect sense. In the absence of a more clear cut and binding form of acceptance that would normally settle such a matter more easily like a witnessed signature on some physical paper, the court has to use the behaviour of the people involved and this farmer behaved in a way very similar to both their own previous behaviour that indeed had signalled contract acceptance as well as a commonly understood 3rd party indication of assent. Even if the farmer's own explanation of miscommunication were true, and they were just signalling that they'd seen the contract, sure it sucks for them, but it's their fault for both establishing a pattern where these types of important negotiations were conducted in this manner and also somehow failing to account for common understanding. It might seem unfair to be on the hook for something just because you thought an emoji meant something else, but imagine how much it sucks to deal with someone who's understanding of common forms of communication is some separate and arcane private interpretation totally unbeknownst to you and when they use well understood signals of assent they actually meant something totally different. "Oh, I guess I should have known" hmmmm.

Maybe for an $82000 contract they should have taken the time to be a little more clear-headed in their communication in which case they might have realised how ambiguous it might be to respond with something they think means "YES I've received your contract" in the context where only the YES portion might actually be what's heard. They certainly understood it was some kind of confirmation even if not what they meant and they did nothing to clarify what they were confirming. He said he didn't have time to look at the contract and just seems to have quickly responded with this but frankly that's pretty flippant behaviour when discussing contracts. For example, they didn't later review the contract when they did have time and then say "thank you but after reviewing the contract I've decided to decline" which, if delivered in a reasonably timely manner might have made a world of difference, but instead they simply didn't fulfill the contract 8 months later. If previously they hadn't used this emoji to signal assent, then if anything it should have seemed an even more encouraging sign since previously simply receiving the contract via text had been enough before and now he's doing that and saying "👍".

Without the ability for such additional context to be considered that truly would open up floodgates for people to weasel out of obligations by subverting the intent of law by trying to use the letter of it. Imagine if someone hired you, sent you a contract with agreed rates, discussed a job with you sent communication back and forth during your employment and granted you access to the work site day in and day out and then at the end of the contract announced that you should have paid attention to the fact that although a contract was sent they didn't actually sign it and so technically you were never really hired and were just volunteering this whole time. It'd be very important for all the surrounding context to be able to stand in for and legally imply contract acceptance or there'd be all manner of fuckery.