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Say someone received a contract (job offer) through email to sign. They print it. Of all pages in the contract, only one page (say page 9) has signature space. They print a couple of extra copies of the page 9 which has the signature space.

They sign in the extra couple of copies of the signature page (page 9) by keeping it accidentally over the actual next page (page 10) in the contract, aligned perfectly over it. They also sign the actual final attached signature page (page 9). They scan and send the all pages of the contract to the other party, discarding the extra couple of copies of the signature page (page 9).

By effect of this, the next page (page 10) of the signature page has a couple of additional impressions/debossings (with no ink) of the signature, overlapping and offset from each other by few millimeters due to natural variations in each signatures. Whereas there is only one signature present on the previous page. Is this acceptable or does this have any legal significance? Is there a necessity that impressions/debossings should match the previous page signatures/writings if they are present?

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    If the documents are scanned and (presumably) emailed (as opposed to mailing the originals) then it's unlikely that the other party will even be aware of the impressions/debossings present on the original.
    – brhans
    Commented Oct 29 at 11:59
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    There only needs to be (and should only be) one signature on page 9. I've started a signature and had the pen fail, printed another page, and done it properly. Why do you think there is any legal significance?
    – Jon Custer
    Commented Oct 29 at 12:35
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    I would expect that even each of the pages of the contract was signed (with actual ink) it would not have any significance other than providing evidence that none of the pages has been replaced with an altered version. If anything, it would make the contract more difficult to impeach.
    – SJuan76
    Commented Oct 29 at 20:33
  • Please also mention the intended jurisdiction. There are places where a scan of a signature is not worth the paper it is not printed on (while for obscure reasons, a fax of a signature is valid)
    – Hagen von Eitzen
    Commented Oct 30 at 16:12

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The only significance I have ever seen given to impressions left by a signature on a separate page is as evidence of how the document was signed, or of what pages were present when the document was signed.

See e.g. Lagani v. Lagani, 2012 ONSC 2614, at para 49.

None of this is "proof" of anything; it is merely evidence that one sheet was under another while the latter was being signed. Whether this is actually relevant will depend on the facts in dispute in a case.

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  • So, if a signature is present in one page and the following pages have impression of it, it would prove that the pages were together when signed. Does the inverse variant of it, when impressions present on page don't match the previous page (due to keeping duplicate copies of signature page and signing it over the next page of the contract and discarding them), hold any importance or are they considered normal wear and tear of the signature process?
    – user70241
    Commented Oct 30 at 10:05
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    @user70241 I am struggling to imagine a circumstance in which it could be useful to prove that a certain page was not underneath a second page when the second page was signed, or why that could be useful.
    – phoog
    Commented Oct 30 at 14:38
  • Employee says they never agreed to a particular policy and alleges employer inserted the page into the copy of the agreement in their file post facto? (lots of issues re: lack of proper page numbering, not initialing and dating each page, but if both parties followed good practices they probably don't end up in litigation that scrutinizes that sort of thing in the first place?)
    – Affe
    Commented Oct 30 at 17:28
  • @phoog Rather than focusing on the top page (signature page), if you focus on the bottom page (page underneath which extra signature pages were signed thus forming multiple signature impressions on it), would the extra signature impressions on the bottom page hold any significance?
    – user70241
    Commented Oct 30 at 17:58
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It has no "legal" significance. It could be pertinent to the proof that the signature is authentic.

If the signing individual is available to explain the situation, it is no big deal. If the person who signed it and any other available witnesses to the signing are unavailable, this could be offered up as evidence of a forgery and might be persuasive.

I had a similar situation come up once when the validity of a notarized document was questioned because of a discrepancy where a driver's license from one state with an address in a different state was used to confirm the identity of the person signing the document. (The person signing it was dead and couldn't testify.) But, when the actual driver's license of the signing person with this weird address was actually produced as evidence, this concern dissolved into nothing and made the authenticity of the signature actually more credible.

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