According to US law, if someone signs a legal document (say, employment contract), scans it and burns the original, is that document, in its scanned form, still valid and legally binding as the original?
I’m interested in hearing about European law as well.
IANAL but I work in a large law office where contracts are “executed in counterparts” or by “facsimile signature” all the time. Usually those contracts contain clauses that validate such execution and someone, usually an attorney, always ends up with a document containing all original signatures.
The problem with copies of any type is that they can be forged. However, if all parties ratify the copy, then a court will accept it as an original.
IANAL etc. The answer may depend in part on the document and jurisdiction. In Wisconsin, for example, a will is only valid in the original. A photocopy, scanned copy, etc. is invalid. Other documents like POA for health care are valid in copy form. I’m unaware of any case law establishing the validity of a scanned document.
Sort of on-point, Bill Clinton signed legislation establishing the validity of electronic documents and signatures under some circumstances. The question I always had was, he signed the bill electronically. Since prior to the signing of the bill electronic signatures weren’t legal, doesn’t his signing the bill electronically mean that the bill wasn’t signed and thus never truly went into effect?
You seem to confuse a contract being binding and a paper providing proof of the contract. I’ll only discuss affairs in European countries (you may decide for yourself whether this would include the U.K.). I’m not an expert in all European legal systems, but rely on informal knowledge that most continental systems are fairly alike in this respect.
AFAIK most contracts in most European states can be concluded orally, hence are binding even in the absence of a signed document stating what is the contract. So you could burn the contract without scanning it and it would still be binding.
However, if the other party were to dispute the existence of the contract or the specific content of its terms, it would be incumbent to have some measure of proof. Proof can AFAIK in most European states be provided in various ways. A written and signed document is in general considered to be ‘stronger’ proof (the exact legal consequences differ in various states, so please forgive me for using this inexact general term).
However, if you provide a scanned document that looks original, the judge may well accept it as sufficient prima facie proof. If the other party still denies having signed the document (which probably means he’d have to be willing to lie under oath), the original document will have an advance on the copy since there are more ways to forge a scanned signature, while with an original you could prove that he actually signed it by getting an expert on handwriting.
All this is of course speaking very generally. For specific contracts there may exist a requirement of having a written contract. Furthermore specific countries may well have varying differences in actual rules. There is a EU Directive on electronic signatures that does not have direct bearing on your question, but gives some indication that ‘electronic’ documents should not be put at an unnecessary disadvantage with respect to bindingness and proof.
Tusculan is right. In most jurisdictions in the US, the only requirement for a legally binding contract is that there is an offer, an acceptance and consideration (read: payment). There is no requirement that the contract be memorialized in a writing.
Lawyers/law students will sit around and argue all day about what constitutes “offer,” “acceptance” and “consideration,” but all will agree that a written document is not required for a common-law binding contract to exist.
Proving that an unwritten contract exists may be difficult so a writing may be preferable, but other proof of the contract’s existence can be used (course of dealing, for example).
At common law, certain contracts have to be evidenced by a writing to avoid the statute of frauds. Under the statute of frauds, contracts which are for, among other things, interests in real property (i.e., land), the purchase of goods above $500.00, or contracts that cannot be completed within one year, must all be evidenced by a writing in order to be enforceable by a court.
In addition, under modern law, many types of contracts must be in writing to be considered enforceable under certain regulatory schemes. For example, to have the protection of modern banking/lending laws, a lending contract must be in writing.
Getting back to the OP, if you have saved an electronic version of the contract and the original hard copy is no longer available, such scanned version would likely be considered the “best evidence” of the terms of the contract unless there was some reasonable suspicion that such evidence had been altered and was, therefore, untrustworthy. In such a case, a judge may require that the original be provided.
I second db’s excellent post. As he strongly implies, though, even if a written contract isn’t required, it’s almost always a good idea.