If any person shall, in the presence or hearing of another, curse or abuse such other person, or use any violent abusive language to such person concerning himself or any of his relations, or otherwise use such language, under circumstances reasonably calculated to provoke a breach of the peace, he shall be guilty of a Class 3 misdemeanor.
Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-416
Punishment for using abusive language to another
Applied in 9 court decisions — leading case Pulliam v. Allen (1984)
Most recently applied in United States v. Jules Bartow (May 2021)
Code 1950, § 18.1-255; 1960, c. 358; 1975, cc. 14, 15.
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.