A person, firm, or corporation that knowingly uses for advertising purposes, or for the purpose of trade, the name, portrait, or picture of any person resident in the Commonwealth, without having first obtained the written consent of such person, or if dead, of his surviving consort, or if none, his next of kin, or, if a minor, of his or her parent or guardian, as well as that of such minor, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and be fined not less than $50 nor more than $1,000.
Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-216.1
Unauthorized use of name or picture of any person; punishment
Applied in 3 court decisions — leading case Lawrence v. A.S. Abell Co. (1984)
Most recently applied in 313 Freemason v. Freemason Assocs., Inc. (August 2002)
Code 1950, § 8-650; 1977, c. 624.
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: Virginia Law Portal (LIS). Reproduced from public-domain Virginia statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.