Opposing the Recycling of a Poor Opinion

In 2004 a defendant denied having signed a promissory note. His handwriting expert issued a report stating the denied signature was false. I was asked to examine the matter.

Each of defendant's signatures was technically "a mark," which means a written symbol of no conventional meaning. One could not say what words his mark represented. To identify the maker of a mark, one needs to determine a set of significant characteristics common to the exemplar marks and that will distinguish the writer’s marks from similar marks by any other writer. The man's exemplars lacked even one common trait, except illegibility.

At trial the burden was on defendant to prove the forgery. I demonstrated the man's signature was not identifiable by expert handwriting evidence. His handwriting expert gave her opinion, using the best exemplar for demonstrating differences. On cross-examination she was asked to state what would prove all his genuine signatures to be genuine. She could not. Her selected exemplar was compared to other exemplars to show her method proved they also were false. What proves the genuine to be false cannot prove the questioned to be false. Plaintiff prevailed.

Fast forward to 2006. Another plaintiff attorney had the same situation with the same handwriting expert for a new defendant. However, when opposing examiner testified, the attorney let her skill of demonstrating from a selected exemplar charm him as the Pied Piper charmed the children of Hamelin. After the trial he faxed her demonstrative exhibits to me. These are edited versions of notes I sent back regarding features she relied on to prove falsity:

1. The loop was not identifying of his signatures, otherwise every signature lacking it would be false, but several genuine signatures lacked this loop.
2. She said her chosen exemplar had four horizontal lines, but the questioned signature did not. Like the questioned signature, most exemplars lacked four lines, so they must also be false.
3. She used this one selected genuine signature for demonstration versus using the entire corpus of known signatures. By happenstance it was the one that would work best.
4. If this one known signature were valid to prove any other to be false or genuine, then all exemplars were false since each differed in some feature she mentioned.
5. If she would say she was not relying on individual features but on the combination, then all exemplars would be false since none had this precise combination.
6. What would prove the genuine to be false cannot prove the questioned to be false.

The moral to the story is never be charmed by an opposing expert's suave demonstrations, but keep your critical senses at their peak performance. Call me if you need an expert capable of keen, critical evaluation of an opposing expert's selective facts and false logic.

TOP