§ 8.01-428.Setting aside default judgments; clerical mistakes; independent actions to relieve party from judgment or proceedings; grounds and time limitations.

Subsection A gives a summary path for undoing a default judgment or a decree pro confesso — a decree entered because the defendant did not contest it — on motion, after reasonable notice, on four grounds: fraud on the court, a void judgment, proof of accord and satisfaction, or proof that the defendant was a servicemember under federal law at the time of service or judgment. A fraud-on-the-court motion has to be filed within two years of the judgment or decree.

Subsection B handles a smaller problem: clerical mistakes and other errors arising from oversight or inadvertent omission in a judgment or the record. The court can fix those on its own initiative or on any party’s motion, at any time, and even while an appeal is pending — before docketing in the appellate court on the trial court’s own authority, and after docketing with the appellate court’s leave.

Subsection C addresses the case where a party or unrepresented litigant in circuit court, not in default, never got notice that a final order was entered. If the court is satisfied that the lack of notice was not the party’s own fault and cost them the chance to seek post-trial relief or appeal, the court has 60 days from entry of the order to modify, vacate, or suspend it, or to grant leave to appeal — with the appeal clock then running from the new order.

Subsections D and E mark the section’s boundaries. Nothing here limits the court’s power to entertain an independent action for relief from a judgment or proceeding at any time, or to grant relief to a defendant never served with process under § 8.01-322, or to set aside a judgment for fraud on the court outside this section’s own procedure. And none of it gives a non-servicemember defendant new grounds to undo an otherwise valid default judgment.