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Fraudulent Signing

Guarantee Company of North America v. Ciro Excavating & Grading Ltd. 2015 Ont SCJ

GCNA commenced an action pursuant to an indemnity agreement, which the indemnifier appeared to sign, relating to bonds that GCNA issued on behalf of the principal corporation. The indemnifier had two defences: what seemed to be her signature was forged by her son-in-law and if, she signed it, she did not understand what she signed. The judge rejected both defences. For the first, the indemnifier put forward no evidence that the signature was not hers and a bald statement that her son-in-law was a crook was not sufficient. For the second, the defence of non est factum needs a misrepresentation so that the person signing the document believes it means other than what it says and the person signing it must not be careless in signing it. The indemnifier never read any documents that were presented to her for signing; the defence was not available to her.

Written by Jonathan Speigel Jonathan Speigel, the founding partner of Speigel Nichols Fox LLP, leads the litigation and construction practices.