Except for process commencing actions for divorce or annulment of marriage or other actions wherein service of process is specifically prescribed by statute, process which has reached the person to whom it is directed within the time prescribed by law, if any, shall be sufficient although not served or accepted as provided in this chapter.
Va. Code Ann. § 8.01-288
Process received in time good though neither served nor accepted
Applied in 28 court decisions — leading case Doe v. Connors (1992)
Most recently applied in RECP IV WG Land Investors, L.L.C. v. Capital One Bank (USA), N.A. (May 2016)
Code 1950, § 8-53; 1977, c. 617; 1987, c. 594; 1988, c. 583.
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.