No action or suit shall abate for want of form where the motion for judgment or bill of complaint sets forth sufficient matter of substance for the court to proceed upon the merits of the cause. The court shall not regard any defect or imperfection in the pleading, whether it has been heretofore deemed mispleading or insufficient pleading or not, unless there be omitted something so essential to the action or defense that judgment, according to law and the very right of the cause, cannot be given.
Va. Code Ann. § 8.01-275
When action or suit not to abate for want of form; what defects not to be regarded
Applied in 4 court decisions — leading case Lesner Pointe Condominium Ass'n v. Harbour Point Building Corp. (2002)
Most recently applied in Pleasant v. Haynes (April 2006)
Code 1950, §§ 8-102, 8-109; 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.