Request By:
Hon. Bremer Ehrler
Secretary of State
Capitol Building
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
Opinion
Opinion By: Frederic J. Cowan, Attorney General; Ross T. Carter, Assistant Attorney General
You have asked whether a blind person may be appointed a notary public.
As you point out in your letter of inquiry, the qualifications for notary public set out in KRS 423.010 require only that the applicant "must be eighteen (18) years of age, a resident of the county from which he makes his application, of good moral character and capable of discharging the duties imposed upon him by this chapter." Those duties, according to KRS 423.130, include certifying that a person acknowledging an instrument appeared before the notary and was either known to the notary or provided satisfactory evidence that he was the person described in the instrument.
The notary's function is to certify what he knows or perceives; there is no duty to conduct any sort of investigation or inquiry as to the identity of the person making the acknowledgment. As stated in 1 Am.Jur.2d, Acknowledgments § 31, "The officer certifies to facts which come to him by the exercise of his own senses." It is quite possible for a blind notary to discern, through the sense of hearing or otherwise, the identity of someone who is personally known to the blind notary. In such an instance the notary could easily certify that the acquaintance appeared before him and acknowledged the document.
If the person making the acknowledgment is not personally known, the blind notary must exercise the same judgment that any other notary exercises in determining the identity of the person seeking the notary certificate. A blind notary would be severely restricted in the types of evidence on which to base such a judgment, but we are unwilling to state that it would be impossible for the blind notary to perform the duties of his position. The blind notary should, of course, refuse to place a certificate on a document whenever his lack of sight prevents him from making a truthful certification.
We conclude therefore that a blind person may be appointed a notary public.