Chap. 274.—An ACT to amend section 1 of an act entitled an act authorizing the
filing of a petition in a pending chancery cause in the clerk’s office, and to
mature the same at rules, approved February 9, 1898.

Approved March 25, 1902.

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That section one
of an act entitled an act to authorize the filing of a petition in a pending
chancery cause in the clerk’s office, and to mature the same at rules, ap-
proved February ninth, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, be amended
and re-enacted so as to read as follows:

§ 1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That any per-
son who would be entitled to be admitted a party to a chancery cause
pending in any court may, for the purpose of asserting a right or seeking
relief therein, by leave of such court, or of the judge thereof in vacation,
file a petition in the clerk’s office of such court in vacation, making all
persons so affected by the relief prayed for in such petition, whether par-
ties to the main cause or not, parties defendant, and to have issued
thereon a summons to the said defendants, returnable to rules or to the
next term, to answer the same. And said defendants may make any de-
fense to such petition as they could have made if process had been
awarded by a court, by demurrer, plea, answer, or otherwise, filing the
same at rules or at term. And when such petition shall have been ma-
tured, depositions may be taken in relation to issues raised thereby. But
a defendant to such petition shall have the same right to move to dismiss
the same that he would have to resist an application to court for leave to
file it.

2. This act shall be in force from its passage.