16.1-118 - When papers in civil cases returned to courts of record may be destroyed.
§ 16.1-118. When papers in civil cases returned to courts of record may bedestroyed.
The clerk of any court of record to whose office papers in civil cases in thedistrict court have been returned for indexing and preserving under §16.1-69.55 may destroy the files, papers and records connected with any suchcivil case, if:
(1) Such case was dismissed without any adjudication of the merits of thecontroversy, and the final order entered was one of dismissal and one yearhas elapsed from the date of such dismissal; or
(2) Judgment was entered in such case but twenty years have elapsed sinceentry of such judgment and a motion to extend the period for enforcement ofjudgment has not been brought prior to the expiration of twenty years fromthe date such judgment was entered; or
(3) No service of the warrant or motion or other process or summons was hadon any defendant and one year has elapsed from the date of such process orsummons; and
(4) The destruction of such papers is authorized and directed by an order ofthe judge of the court in which they are preserved, which order may refer tosuch papers by any one or more of the above classifications, or to any groupor kind of cases embraced therein, without express reference to anyparticular case.
(1956, c. 555; 1962, c. 444; 1972, c. 491; 1977, c. 169; 1982, c. 153.)