§ 8.01-378.Trial judge not to direct verdicts.

Juries decide cases, not judges — that principle sits behind Section 8.01-378. A Virginia trial judge cannot give the jury a peremptory instruction telling it what verdict to return. Even if the judge is certain how the case should come out, the decision has to come from the jury’s own deliberation, not from an instruction that pre-writes the answer.

That does not mean a judge is powerless when the evidence fails. If the judge grants a motion to strike the evidence — finding that the plaintiff or defendant has not put on a legally sufficient case — the judge does not send a hollow question to the jury anyway. Instead, the judge enters summary judgment, or partial summary judgment, that matches the ruling on the motion to strike. The outcome is the same as if the judge had directed a verdict, but the mechanism is different: it runs through the summary judgment procedure rather than a jury instruction.

The distinction matters because it keeps the formal record honest about what happened. A directed verdict and a judgment entered after striking the evidence produce a similar practical result, but this section makes sure Virginia courts reach that result through the entry of judgment as a matter of law, not by pretending the jury reached its own conclusion.