The New Court of Appeals of Virginia Opens for Business: Every Civil Case Now Gets an Appeal
Until a few weeks ago, Virginia held a distinction no injured person would have chosen for it: it was the only state in America where a civil litigant had no right to appeal. If a judge dismissed your injury case on demurrer, or struck your evidence at trial, or set aside the verdict a jury had just awarded you, your only path forward was to ask the Supreme Court of Virginia for permission to appeal — permission it usually declined. For most Virginians, one ruling by one judge was simply the end.
On January 1, 2022, that era ended. Under Senate Bill 1261, passed during the General Assembly's 2021 special session, the Court of Appeals of Virginia now has jurisdiction over appeals of right in civil cases. Every civil litigant — including every injured plaintiff — is now guaranteed at least one appeal on the merits. To handle the new docket, the court has expanded from eleven judges to seventeen, and it now sits in panels hearing cases from across the Commonwealth.
What changed, exactly
Before this year, the Court of Appeals of Virginia was a specialized court. It heard criminal appeals, domestic relations cases, workers' compensation appeals, and a handful of administrative matters — but not ordinary civil cases. A negligence plaintiff who lost in circuit court went straight to the Supreme Court of Virginia, where review was by discretionary petition. The Supreme Court granted only a small fraction of those petitions. Everyone else's case ended without any appellate court ever reviewing the merits.
| Before Jan. 1, 2022 | After Jan. 1, 2022 | |
|---|---|---|
| Civil appeal of right | None — Virginia was the only state without one | Yes — to the Court of Appeals of Virginia |
| First stop after circuit court | Supreme Court of Virginia, by discretionary petition | Court of Appeals of Virginia, as of right |
| Court of Appeals judges | 11 | 17 |
| Supreme Court review | Petition (rarely granted) | Still available — discretionary, after the Court of Appeals |
The Supreme Court of Virginia remains the Commonwealth's highest court, and its review remains discretionary. But now it sits atop a system in which every litigant has already had one full appellate look at the case.
Why this matters so much in injury cases
Appeals are not just for losers of trials. In personal injury practice, the rulings that end cases often come long before a jury is seated: a demurrer sustained on a novel duty question, summary judgment on contributory negligence, exclusion of a key expert, a verdict set aside as excessive. Under the old system, a trial judge's ruling on any of these was, as a practical matter, nearly final — defense counsel and insurers knew the odds of the Supreme Court taking the case were slim, and they valued cases accordingly.
An appeal of right changes that arithmetic. Trial court rulings will now be tested, published appellate guidance on recurring civil questions will accumulate, and a plaintiff with a strong legal position no longer has to hope for a discretionary grant to vindicate it.
It is worth being clear about what an appeal is and is not. The Court of Appeals does not retry the case: there are no new witnesses, no new evidence, and no second jury. The court reviews the record made in the circuit court — the transcripts, the exhibits, the rulings — and asks whether the law was correctly applied. Questions of law are reviewed fresh; factual findings and discretionary calls get more deference. That is precisely why the reform rewards careful trial lawyering. An objection not made, an argument not preserved, an instruction not offered — none of it can be resurrected on appeal. The new right is only as valuable as the record built beneath it.
What this means for injured people in Virginia
- A guaranteed second look. If your case is dismissed or your verdict is taken away, you now have the right to a merits appeal — no petition lottery.
- Better settlement leverage. Insurers can no longer treat a favorable trial-court ruling as effectively unreviewable.
- More law, faster. With seventeen judges writing in civil cases for the first time, Virginia will develop a much richer body of appellate precedent on the issues injury cases turn on — duty, evidence, damages, and procedure.
- Appeals take time. The trade-off is a longer road in some cases: a defendant on the wrong end of a verdict also gets an appeal of right. Building a clean trial record now matters more than ever.
We try cases in Virginia's circuit courts, and we have long believed that appellate review makes trial justice better. This reform is the most important structural change to Virginia's civil justice system in generations, and it arrived with the new year.
If you or a loved one has been hurt, call Posey Lebowitz at (202) 524-0123 or send us a message for a free consultation.
Part of our DMV case law archive, compiled in 2026 to reflect the archive of some of the most important decisions in injury law.
Update: The new court's impact on injury cases arrived quickly — see our later coverage of Rodrigue v. Butts-Franklin and Al-Saray v. Furr, both decided through the appeal of right created by this reform.