§ 8.01-576.3.Procedures; verdict not binding unless otherwise agreed.

A summary jury trial is not a scaled-down version of a real trial so much as a different animal entirely, and this section is where that difference shows up most clearly. A judge with jurisdiction over the case presides, but instead of calling witnesses to the stand, counsel for each party — or the party personally, if unrepresented — stands up and verbally summarizes the issues in the case and what the evidence would show. The plaintiff’s side goes first, and each party gets a chance, on request, to rebut what the other side just summarized.

What does not happen is just as telling as what does: no witness takes the stand, and no documents go into evidence, unless the parties themselves have stipulated or agreed to it beforehand. The whole exercise runs on lawyers’ and parties’ verbal summaries of the case, not sworn testimony or exhibits, which is what makes the procedure fast and inexpensive compared with an actual trial.

Once both sides finish their presentations, the judge instructs the jury on the law that applies, exactly as in a conventional trial. The jury deliberates and then reports its verdict back to the court.

What that verdict means afterward depends entirely on what the parties agreed before the jury was ever impaneled. By default, the verdict does not bind either side and cannot be used as evidence in any later trial of the same case — it functions as an advisory signal both sides can use to gauge their odds and negotiate a settlement. But if the parties submitted a written agreement to the court, before the jury was impaneled, agreeing to be bound by the outcome, the default flips: the court enters judgment in accordance with whatever the jury decided.