12.3 Virginia Adopted One Form of Action in 2006

• Library: Virginia Law and Practice: A Handbook for Attorneys (Virginia CLE) (2020 Ed.)

12.3 VIRGINIA ADOPTED ONE FORM OF ACTION IN 2006

In the federal courts, ³ proceedings at law and in equity were combined into a single civil action in 1938. ⁴

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The Virginia system continued until January 1, 2006, when the Supreme Court adopted Rule 3:1, which abolished the dual court system and adopted one form of action where a plaintiff could seek both legal and equitable relief in the same complaint as long as the claims arose out of the same transaction or occurrence. ⁵

Until 2006, a plaintiff in Virginia had to choose whether to file on the "law side" or the "equity side" of the circuit court. ⁶ One set of Rules of Court applied in equity; another applied at law. ⁷ The initial pleading in an action at law was a "motion for judgment." In an equity case, it was a "bill of complaint." Today, all civil actions "are commenced by filing a complaint." ⁸ In each circuit court clerk's office, actions at law were filed and indexed separately from suits in equity. Each office had a common-law order book and a chancery order book. ⁹ (In this context, the terms "equity" and "chancery" are synonymous.) ¹⁰ In equity cases, the trial judge was called the chancellor.

Even after the merger, vital questions, including the right to trial by jury in civil cases, depend "on which side of the law-equity boundary a given case falls." ¹¹ Likewise, the "distinction between law and equity remains important in determining available remedies, formulating the scope of injunctive relief, and dispensing exceptions to worthy litigants from the strictures of the law." ¹²

The Virginia Code is replete with references to equity procedures. For example, by statute, every civil case tried in or appealed from a general district or juvenile and domestic relations district court "shall be tried according to the principles of law and equity, and when the same conflict the principles of equity shall prevail." Can a lawyer competently represent a client in such a case without knowing "the principles of equity?"

Va. Code § 8.01-2 contains these provisions, adopted in 2005 in conjunction with the merger of law and equity:

• "Court of equity," "law and equity court," "law and chancery court," "chancery court," "corporation court," "the chancery side," "court exercising powers in chancery," "court with equitable jurisdiction," and "receivership court" shall mean the circuit court when entertaining equitable claims; ¹³

• A "motion for judgment," "bill," "bill of

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