Short answer. Rule 132, Section 22 lets any witness who has actually seen the person write, or has handled writing believed to be theirs closely enough to have acquired knowledge of it, testify to genuineness, and separately allows genuineness to be shown by comparison, made by the witness or the court, against writings already admitted as genuine.
What the law says
The handwriting of a person may be proved by any witness who believes it to be the handwriting of such person because he or she has seen the person write, or has seen writing purporting to be his or hers upon which the witness has acted or been charged, and has thus acquired knowledge of the handwriting of such person.
Rule 132, Section 22 — How genuineness of handwriting proved. Read the full provision →
What the law says
Evidence respecting the handwriting may also be given by a comparison, made by the witness or the court, 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.
Rule 132, Section 22 — How genuineness of handwriting proved. Read the full provision →
The first, non-expert route: a familiarity witness
The section's first sentence does not require any special qualification at all — an ordinary witness can testify to handwriting genuineness simply because they have actually seen the person write, or have handled documents purporting to be that person's handwriting under circumstances where they came to act or rely on it, such as a bookkeeper who regularly processed a client's signed instructions. That accumulated familiarity, built through ordinary dealings rather than forensic training, is enough for the witness to offer an opinion the rule treats as admissible evidence of genuineness, not merely a lay guess the court must disregard.
The second route: comparison with known genuine writing
Separately, the rule allows genuineness to be established by comparison — placing the disputed signature or writing side by side with writing already admitted or treated as genuine, or writing otherwise proved genuine to the judge's satisfaction. This comparison can be made either by a witness or by the court itself examining the documents directly, without necessarily requiring specialized forensic analysis, though nothing in the rule prevents a party from bringing in a document examiner where the stakes justify the added cost and the visual comparison alone is not persuasive enough.
Choosing between the two, and their limits
For many everyday disputes — a signed loan acknowledgment, a disputed contract signature, a questioned letter — a witness who genuinely knows the person's handwriting from prior dealings is often the fastest and cheapest way to establish or contest genuineness, and it avoids the delay and expense of retaining a forensic document examiner. Comparison evidence works well when there are undisputed genuine samples on hand to compare against. Where the outcome truly turns on a subtle or contested forgery question, however, an expert may still be worth the cost, since the rule authorizing lay proof does not prevent either side from strengthening its case with expert testimony as well.
Related provisions
- Rule 132, Section 22 — How genuineness of handwriting proved
- Rule 132, Section 21 — When evidence of authenticity of private document not necessary
- Rule 132, Section 23 — Public documents as evidence