§ 8.01-374.Procedure when original papers in cause are lost.

Court files vanish sometimes — a courthouse fire, a flood, a folder that goes missing between the trial court and an appellate clerk’s office. Section 8.01-374 tells Virginia courts what to do when that happens: rebuild the case rather than let it die of missing paperwork. Any party can bring the loss to the court’s attention and ask to move forward anyway.

The mechanism starts with a petition, verified by affidavit, describing what was lost and asking the court to hear or try the case on a reproduction of the missing material or on proof of what it said. If the party can produce an authenticated copy of the lost item, the court can rule on that basis alone. Without a copy, the court can still proceed after giving the other side reasonable notice, by hearing evidence of what the lost record or paper contained — as much of it as the court needs to decide the case — and then ruling exactly as it would have if nothing had gone missing. The court can also order the pleadings redone, in whole or part, if that makes for a cleaner record.

A plaintiff who would rather not reconstruct a lost file has another option: drop the reconstruction effort and file a fresh suit on the same claim. The section also closes a potential loophole for real property records — if the lost original was a deed, will, account, or other paper that the law requires to be recorded, a certified copy of it cannot be offered as evidence until that copy has itself gone through proper recordation. And none of this applies in criminal cases, which have their own rules for lost evidence.