Any person injured by the violation of any statute may recover from the offender such damages as he may sustain by reason of the violation, even though a penalty or forfeiture for such violation be thereby imposed, unless such penalty or forfeiture be expressly mentioned to be in lieu of such damages. And the damages so sustained together with any penalty or forfeiture imposed for the violation of the statute may be recovered in a single action when the same person is entitled to both damages and penalty; but nothing herein contained shall affect the existing statutes of limitation applicable to the foregoing causes of action respectively.
Va. Code Ann. § 8.01-221
Damages from violation of statute, remedy therefor and penalty
Applied in 12 court decisions — leading case 559 F. Supp. 477 - Morgan v. American Family Life Assurance Co. of Columbus (1983)
Most recently applied in Parker v. Carilion Clinic (November 2018)
Code 1950, § 8-652; 1954, c. 333; 1977, c. 617.
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.