§ 8.01-397.Corroboration required and evidence receivable when one party incapable of testifying (subdivision (b)(5) of Supreme Court Rule 2:804 derived from this section).

Picture a lawsuit where one side of the story can never be told, because the person who would tell it has died, or is otherwise incapable of testifying through illness, incompetency, or similar cause. Section 8.01-397 protects against the risk that the surviving, interested party invents whatever version of events wins the case. It does so by refusing to let a court enter judgment for that interested party based only on that party’s own uncorroborated word.

The section balances the scale two ways. First, it lets in evidence that would otherwise be hard to use: entries, memoranda, and declarations the incapable person made while still capable, relevant to the dispute, come in regardless of whether the adverse party testifies. Second, it defines what counts as corroboration, allowing a business-record entry authored by the adverse or interested party to help corroborate that party’s own testimony — but if authentication is not admitted through a request for admission, someone other than the author, and not an interested party involved in the case’s allegations, must authenticate the record.

One limit worth noting: the protection does not apply if the incapacitated party became unable to testify because of an intentional, self-inflicted injury. The statute is aimed at leveling an unfair evidentiary playing field, not at rewarding someone who caused their own incapacity.