§ 8.01-272.Pleading several matters; joining tort and contract claims; separate trial in discretion of court; counterclaims.

Section 8.01-272 removes an old formal barrier to how a party frames a case. It lets a party plead as many matters, of law or of fact, as he thinks necessary — there is no cap on the number of legal theories or factual allegations a single pleading can raise.

The section also lets a party join a tort claim with a contract claim in the same action, so long as both arise out of the same transaction or occurrence, a useful tool when a single contractual relationship produces both a breach and an independent tort. To manage the resulting complexity, the court has discretion to order a separate trial for any claim, rather than forcing everything into one undifferentiated proceeding. Counterclaims, though, are not governed by this section at all; the statute defers to the Rules of the Supreme Court of Virginia for how they work.