§ 8.01-379.1.Informing jury of amounts sued for.

Juries deciding how much to award often want a number to anchor their thinking, and for years Virginia practice restricted how much a jury could hear about the amount at stake. Section 8.01-379.1 opens that door. Any party — not just the plaintiff — may tell the jury what amount of damages the plaintiff is seeking, whether in the opening statement, the closing argument, or both.

The section also gives the plaintiff flexibility about the number itself. A plaintiff is not locked into repeating the ad damnum — the maximum dollar figure demanded in the motion for judgment — when addressing the jury. Instead, a plaintiff may request an amount lower than that ceiling, which lets counsel argue for a figure that better fits how the evidence developed at trial rather than the number pled at the outset of the case.

Because the section opens with “notwithstanding any other provision of law,” it overrides any conflicting limitation elsewhere, making clear the legislature meant this permission to control regardless of older practice restricting what juries could be told about the damages sought.