CODE OF VIRGINIA

WHEN PAPERS IN CIVIL CASES RETURNED TO COURTS OF RECORD MAY BE DESTROYED (§
16.1-118)

The clerk of any court of record to whose office papers in civil cases in the
district court have been returned for indexing and preserving under §
16.1-69.55 may destroy the files, papers and records connected with any such
civil case, if:

   (1.  Such case was dismissed without any adjudication of the merits of the
   controversy, and the final order entered was one of dismissal and one year has
   elapsed from the date of such dismissal; or

   (2.  Judgment was entered in such case but twenty years have elapsed since
   entry of such judgment and a motion to extend the period for enforcement of
   judgment has not been brought prior to the expiration of twenty years from the
   date such judgment was entered; or

   (3.  No service of the warrant or motion or other process or summons was had
   on any defendant and one year has elapsed from the date of such process or
   summons; and

   (4.  The destruction of such papers is authorized and directed by an order of
   the judge of the court in which they are preserved, which order may refer to
   such papers by any one or more of the above classifications, or to any group
   or kind of cases embraced therein, without express reference to any particular
   case.

HISTORY: 1956, c. 555; 1962, c. 444; 1972, c. 491; 1977, c. 169; 1982, c. 153.