A question spun off from something that occurred to me regarding events that have been documented in our long-running WWE thread.
Today’s thread relates to the case of wrestler Eric Arndt, known professionally as Enzo Amore. According to his recent social media posts, he’s been in a flap with the Delaware DMV recently over the signature on his driver’s license. According to Arndt, his signature is a stylized “E A” monogram that he’s been using since he was a kid. To many other people - including, presumably, the state officials who’ve been bothering him over it - it looks like something else entirely. I’ll let you be the judge.
It’s been my personal experience as an adult that a signature need not necessarily be legible or resemble the way one would print one’s name, as long as it is visually recognizable and consistent with the way you generally make your mark. My own signature these days is basically just a scribble that vaguely resembles my first and last initials and a couple of the letters that follow them. I guess, in a larger sense, my question is to what extent a signature can become stylized before you suffer legal problems because of it. In a case like this, where the signature resembles a certain part of the anatomy not generally discussed in polite company, can he be compelled to change the way he signs his name? Would it be an issue if his signature was otherwise styled in a way that didn’t look dirty? Can the state in general force someone to sign a document differently than how they’re accustomed to doing so?
I eagerly await the opinions of any of our resident law-talkin’-guys in regards to this urgent and major issue.
I’m curious just how the signature came to the DMV’s attention. If that’s the way he signs his checks, income tax return, etc then that’s his signature. He should be the one complaining about the DMV announcing their own paradolia. Right?
I’m suspicious of the story. For starters, I’ve never heard of the DMV communicating via phone as Amore claims. And then there’s the claim that they’re “demanding” that he change his signature. Or what? If there’s not a written policy that he’s violating, do they even have the authority to revoke his license? The article hasn’t specified what (if any) consequences he’s been threatened with.
Generally speaking, the significance of a signature is the intent, not the mark itself. If you write something in a place where a signature would be expected, and you intended the writing to convey agreement, it’s a signature. You could write it a different way every time, for all the law cares. People often have the idea that courts hearing contract cases (for example) will often have extensive testimony from handwriting experts about whether a signature is valid, but it’s just not true. 99% of the time people will admit to having signed things; the dispute will be about whether they understood what they were signing, or whether they had authority to sign for an entity, or capacity, or whatever.
Banks and other financial operations are typically the only entities which actually compare signatures for day-to-day business operations. Otherwise, nobody is going to attempt verify the authenticity of a signature unless the signer disputes that it’s his.
Addressing the OP’s actual question more directly: there’s no law that prohibits a signature that looks like a penis (I can’t access TMZ at work but I’m guessing that’s what Amore’s problem is. However, most agency-implementing laws have broad catchall provisions which permit the agency to refuse to offer state endorsement to obscene or offensive messages, and things like that. For example, DMVs don’t have to allow the Sons of Confederate Veterans to have their own license plate design. So it’s possible that Delaware law allows the DMV to refuse to reprint an obscene mark on a license.
*this does happen in probate law, since testators by definition aren’t around to authenticate their own signatures, and wills are often kept in personal filing cabinets or other places where they could be clandestinely modified (or forged). That’s why the law usually requires that wills be signed in the presence of witnesses, as those people can be called to authenticate the dead person’s signature if necessary.
I didn’t see this mentioned in our thread Smapti, but I’m guessing Enzo is doing some creative embellishment on a non-issue to make himself relevant again.
THAT’S a “stylized A E monogram”?
If it was any sort of monogram. I’d have guessed “WD”. And I guess we can all be thankful that Walt Disney went his characteristically loopy design rather than this.
It looks to me as if he’s deliberately making a provocative design and claiming artistic license.
Had a friend whose signature was his initials. . Artsy, maybe; fun, to him; but a pain when he’d have to stop and pedantically explain to every clerk he wrote a check to (and the store manager, holding up the line), every banker, every landlord… that yes, your initials can be a signature.
Glad he never thought of the Dong Initials Stunt – he’d’ve gone for it.
Generally your signature is whatever you say it is, although when I got a Virginia driver’s license they told me my signature must be my name written legibly.
I have a stylized signature I started to use about 10 years ago and once I had a little trouble at the bank because it didn’t match the signature card they had on file. That surprised me in this day of digital-everything, but I signed again using the old signature and all was good.
