Saturday, August 8, 2015

Questioned handwritings, signatures, and documents; how examined; proof of genuiness



JANET CARBONELL VS. JULITA A. CARBONELL-MENDES, REPRESENTED BY HER BROTHER AND ATTORNEY-IN-FACT, VIRGILIO A. CARBONELL, G.R. No. 205681, July 01, 2015.

“x x x.

Besides, the Court finds no justifiable reason to deviate from the finding of the RTC and the Court of Appeals that the signature of respondent was forged on the Deed of Absolute Sale dated 2 April 1997, which was clearly established by the evidence presented during the trial. Under Section 22,⁠6  Rule 132 of the Rules of Court, among the methods of proving the genuineness of the handwriting are through a witness familiar with such handwriting or a comparison by the court of the questioned handwriting and the admitted genuine specimens of the handwriting. In this case, respondent, the purported writer or signatory to the Deed of Absolute Sale, testified that her signature was forged. To prove the forgery, respondent presented, among others, her Canadian and Philippine passports, driver’s license, citizenship card, and health card, showing her genuine signature which was clearly different from the signature on the Deed of Absolute Sale.7  Comparing the genuine signature of respondent on these documents with her purported signature on the Deed of Absolute Sale, the RTC found “significant differences in terms of handwriting strokes, as well as the shapes and sizes of letters, fairly suggesting that the plaintiff [Julita A. Carbonell-Mendes] was not the author of the questioned signature.”8  Signatures on a questioned document may be examined by the trial court judge and compared with the admitted genuine signatures to determine the issue of authenticity of the contested document. As held in Spouses Estacio v. Dr. Jaranilla:9

It bears stressing that the trial court may validly determine forgery from its own independent examination of the documentary evidence at hand. This the trial court judge can do without necessarily resorting to experts, especially when the question involved is mere handwriting similarity or dissimilarity, which can be determined by a visual comparison of specimen of the questioned signatures with those of the currently existing ones. Section 22 of Rule 132 of the Rules of Court explicitly authorizes the court, by itself, to make a comparison of the disputed handwriting “with writings admitted or treated as genuine by the party against whom the evidence is offered, or proved to be genuine to the satisfaction of the judge.”⁠10 

X x x.”