Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California

When a person does something, it can be both a crime and a harm to someone who can sue for the damages they suffer. Criminal law bans particular types of actions, but some civil matters fall into a more general category based upon the harm caused. The act of forgery can result in a "tort" of forgery by causing damage to another person and result in a civil suit.

Your question assumes that a given act may be a crime or a civil wrong (what lawyers call a tort) but not both. You are mistaken. Many crimes are also torts. That is usually true of fraud. Being sued civilly for a fraud does not prevent a criminal prosecution, or even make it less likely.

I agree with Mr. Hoffman. The big example that I can think of is battery. If you hit someone over the head with a 2 x 4, you can be sued for battery, and be arrested and charged with a crime. The two systems, criminal and civil, are not mutually exclusive. The difference is that criminal cases are brought by the state, through the District Attorney's office, and civil cases are brought by the private party injured, either acting as their own attorney, or by retaining an attorney.

With that said, I've never heard of the tort of "forgery" as espoused by Mr. Shers. Forgery may support a cause of action in the civil courts for fraud, or may be the basis of some other action, but it is not an independent theory of civil recovery.