The last time I did a mortgage refinance, the notary would give us the page to sign, describe what the page meant, and her opinion of how important that particular page was. It was still up to us to understand what we signed, but it was terribly nice to have a sense of which pages needed to be scrutinized, and which needed to be glossed.

My knowledge of law is very limited, so this comes from a point of logic: in the specific case described, the OP isn't signing a document. They're signing a blank screen (at least in the case of most digital signature pads I've seen), or one with at most a line of text on it, which is changeable anyway. Perhaps that one-line statement could be confirmation that that they've read a different document - would that be enough?

"I don't understand how you claim that you lacked the intention to sign something that you signed. Are you claiming that your writing hand became possessed by a ghost or a demon and signed the document itself? Does your hand sign documents while you are asleep?" If I don't know what the document contains, how can I intend to agree to it? I have been handed a pad and asked to sign it. No more, no less. If I ask for someone's autograph and then paste it to a document, why would that be any less binding than my signature attached to nothing?

@ChrisH In my experience, there is no single line of text on the pad and no way to see what is on the screen that the person asking me to sign it is looking at. Unless I am going to break through the glass and climb through the little window.

Hypothetically, let's say I hand you a blank piece of paper with a little sticker that says 'sign here'. You say, "why?", and I say "don't worry about it, just standard stuff". You sign (for the sake of argument) and then I take the paper and run it through my printer and add a bunch of contract details. Would you say then that you intended to agree to whatever I printed on the contract? Would it hold up in court if I later sued you for breaking a contract of which you had no knowledge?

@JimmyJames: at least in France - yes. We have the concept of signing "in white" (blanc-seign = signing off a space that has no text). You are bound to what someone will put in there (there used to be limitations about losing money but they are not enforced anymore)

@WoJ That's interesting. It's probably too much to ask whether you know the differences between French legal principles and English common law principles. I always wonder though when I fill out a form for a mortgage and it says 'check here if X is true'. What stops someone from checking that later and/or how could prove I didn't check it?

@JimmyJames What stops someone from checking that later and/or how could prove I didn't check it? → you have your copy, co-signed by the other party. Something added/changed on only one of the copies was necessarily done after the signatures exchange.

@JimmyJames you said that you were told what you were signing (“vague notional explanation”). If what they produce later does not match the description then that’s misrepresentation and the agreement is void. If they change it after the fact then that’s fraud and they go to jail. What you asked is if it’s binding if you don’t read it and it is. This is true if you haven’t read it. It’s also true if you haven’t seen it. It’s also true if you don’t know what it is. It isn’t true if there is deliberate or accidental misrepresentation by the other party but then, that’s true if you had read it.

@R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE That’s not the question. The question is: if I sign a document without reading it am I bound and the answer is yes. There are other questions about what happens if there is a dispute about what document I signed but once that’s established by agreement or determination there is no doubt that I’m bound.

It sound like @R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE had a similar thought to me. Simply, you're not signing a document unless you count a blank screen as a document. You're signing a machine that might possibly be on the same desk as a document. Even after the edits, you don't seem to have joined the gap between the blank thing being signed and the document verbally referred to. It would be interesting to see how that can be justified

In the medical field, you are often signing an acknowledgment that the office is doing their job properly. For instance HIPAA, you are signing that they gave you the HIPAA notice. You aren't signing a legally binding document, you aren't even required to sign, you can decline it, it doesn't change anything. This is probably what it is if its a digital pad with nothing written on it.

I think a lot of this conversation is due to different understanding of the 'document' with some folks assuming it's the thing you sign and other folks assuming it's the detailed document that you are signing for on another piece of paper or device.

@MichaelDurrant Perhaps I can clarify. I've had situations where I'm asked to sign a pad and I don't know what the signature is for, Maybe it's agreeing to a HIPAA notice. Maybe it's a release of my personal information to a 3rd party. In other words, I don't know what that signature is being applied to. If I'm not sure I'm even signing a contract or not, how can that be a binding agreement? Not everything is a contract. I mean, you can't take someone's college homework and write a contract around their signature and call it binding.

@DaleM "That’s not the question. The question is: if I sign a document without reading it am I bound" Given that it's my question I can assure you that you are incorrectly interpreting it. R..GitHubSTOPHELPINGICE's interpretation is pretty spot on.

@WoJ So, in France, does that mean that if I get a celebrity to sign their autograph on a blank piece of paper, I can write that they owe all their assets and future income and it's legally binding? I so, I think I've got a new retirement plan.

Thinking more, the big distinction is 'seen' versus 'read'. I absolutely agree that if you are handed a contract and sign without reading, you are going to have a hard time getting out of it. But that's not the scenario. It's being asked to sign your name with no context of what it is being applied to.

@JimmyJames: no, because they did not willingly sign a document that they knew would be filled in. If you sign a blanc-seign, it means that you agree on the (lack of) content, it is a contract like others (that can be challenged, and this is why you have witnesses etc.). Just to be clear: this is a extremely rare case, not your go-to contract! :)

@WoJ "this is a extremely rare case" I would expect so. I'm struggling to imagine a case where this makes sense for the signer. Maybe something related to elder care? In any event that's a little different than this situation where you are supposedly agreeing to something already defined it's just unknown or unclear what that is exactly.

This also depends on where the burden of proof lies. If the burden of proof is on the doctor who needs to show that you signed a specific document, I see no way how he/she should do that.