What do 
have in common? This is not the start of a bad joke. It is how you can be found to be acting in bad faith by using ‘greatly optimistic’ emojis in an abandoned transaction1. Since 2004, there has been an increasing number of cases2 where judges have had to interpret communications between parties using emojis. Cases span from criminal to torts. Emoji use is significant. They can set or change the tone of conversation and reveal a state of mind3. Despite the growth in emoji use, there are issues to overcome4– (1) courts and legal databases have no capacity to show or search by them, (2) there are cultural nuances in their use, and (3) the sender and receiver don’t always see the same picture. iTip – as always in interpretation, context is king!
Suna Rizalar – Tax Counsel Network & emoji connoisseur 
See here for the official PDF of interpretationNOW! Episode 46
In this episode:
Footnotes:
1 Dahan v Sacharoff, 30823-08-16, (Israel 2017).
2 Eric Goldman has tracked this in the US.
3 R v Yang [2016] WASC 410 (at [57]).
4 Goldman (2018) 93(3) Washington Law Review 1227.