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Email, a Legally Binding Contract?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the this-one-smells-fishy dept.

slashrot writes "Boston.com has a story on a dispute between a home buyer and seller in which they agreed on terms in a series of email messages. Superior court judge Ernest B. Murphy decided that even though these messages only contain typewritten names instead of signatures, they still constitute a binding contract. It's said to be a first in Massachusetts." The particulary look to me like a home seller trying to weasel out of a deal, but the ramifications of the decision are substantial. This is really worth a read.

5 of 204 comments (clear)

  1. Huh? by Ozan · · Score: 5, Informative

    I wonder why there is even a discussion over it. A contract never needs a signature, every time you buy a quarterpounder at McD you make a contract. Even multi-million-dollar transactions at the NYSE are made without handwritten signatures. As long as it is clear who the two negotiators are there is no doubt that two declarations of intention are made.

  2. Re:Forgery by tomstdenis · · Score: 3, Informative

    That's what expert witnesses are for.

    I could bring a piece of paper in with your "signature" on it. A hand writing expert would examine it.

    Similarly a computer scientist of some sort would examine the logs of the various networks involved and see if the email could be real.

    Tom

    --
    Someday, I'll have a real sig.
  3. Re:Statute of Frauds, definition of signature by danb35 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Exactly what I was about to say. Note that Uniform Commercial Code, Article 2 only applies to contracts for the sale of goods (not land), but most of the principles in the UCC reflect the common law. In particular, from section 1-201:

    (38) "Signed" includes any symbol executed or adopted by a party with present intention to authenticate a writing.

    . . .

    (45) "Written" or "writing" includes printing, typewriting, or any other intentional reduction to tangible form.

    Doesn't mean the guy's going to win, just that it's not going to be thrown out on the grounds that the contract isn't contained in a "signed writing".

  4. E-SIGN: Electronic Signatures Act by Seth+Finkelstein · · Score: 4, Informative
    I'm not a lawyer. But look at the "Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act" (aka E-SIGN)

    It states:

    Definitions of Electronic Signature

    The E-Sign Act contains the following definition for an electronic signature: "an electronic sound, symbol, or process, attached to or logically associated with a contract or other record and executed or adopted by a person with the intent to sign the record." Further, an electronic record is "a contract or other record created, generated, sent, communicated, received, or stored by electronic means."

    Certain seems to be satified here.

    Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)

  5. Re:Tidbits about contracts, real estate and otherw by mpe · · Score: 3, Informative

    The part of the article that is odd is that the court appears to think that the email between the husband-owner and the buyer was sufficient to bind the wife-owner because she is referred to.

    How is this odd? Marriage laws frequently consider a married couple to be legally equivalent to any other kind of legal partnership... If this was the argument used no longer they lost the case.