§ 8.01-383.Power to grant new trial; how often.

Not every jury verdict survives a second look. Section 8.01-383 gives the trial court that heard a civil jury case the general power to order a new trial, unless some other law specifically takes that power away for a particular situation. It is a broad grant — the court does not need a narrow statutory trigger to act, just its own judgment that the verdict does not hold up.

The section is even-handed about damages. A new trial can be granted because the jury awarded too little, just as readily as because it awarded too much. That matters because it means the new-trial power is not just a defendant’s tool for trimming an award — a plaintiff dissatisfied with an unreasonably low verdict has the same avenue.

There is a limit, though, aimed specifically at verdicts a party attacks as contrary to the evidence: no more than two new trials on that ground for the same party in the same case, and that cap counts trial court and appellate court grants together. Once a party has gotten two new trials in the same cause on an against-the-evidence theory, that particular door closes, whether the third try would have come from the circuit court or from an appellate court above it.