§ 8.01-693.Venue of prisoner actions.

Virginia normally gives plaintiffs a menu of proper venues — preferred forums and permissible forums — depending on where a defendant lives or does business, or where events occurred. This section throws that menu out for prisoner suits covered by Chapter 27. It opens with “notwithstanding any other provision of law,” language that signals it displaces the general venue statutes rather than working alongside them.

In their place, the section installs one fixed rule: venue belongs in the city or county where the prison that housed the prisoner when his cause of action arose is located. It does not matter where the prisoner is housed now, where the defendant lives, or where the prisoner would prefer to sue. The effect is to concentrate prisoner litigation in the courts nearest the facilities where the underlying events happened.

When a prisoner files in the wrong place, the section does not let the case be dismissed for it. Instead, on a defendant’s motion or the court’s own initiative, the court must transfer the case to the correct venue, keeping the suit alive while correcting where it belongs.