Chap. 149.—An ACT to amend and re-enact Section 6131 of the Code of Virginia,
relating to the maturing of actions at law and suits in equity. [H B 254]

Approved March 6, 1940

1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia, That
section sixty-one hundred and thirty-one of the Code of Virginia be
amended and re-enacted so as to read as follows:

Section 6131: Same in office by default; order for inquiry of
damages.—If a defendant, who appears, fail to plead, answer, or
demur to the declaration or bill, a rule may be given him to plead.
If he fail to appear at the rule day at which the process against him
is returned executed, or, when it is returnable to a term, at the first
rule day after it is so returned, the plaintiff, if he has filed his declara-
tion or bill, may have a conditional judgment or decree nisi as to
such defendant. No service of such decree nisi or conditional judg-
ment shall be necessary. But at the next rule day after the same is
entered, if the defendant continue in default, or at the expiration of
any rule upon him with which he fails to comply, if the case be in
equity, the bill shall be entered as taken for confessed as to him,
and, if it be at law, judgment shall be entered against him, with an
order for the damages to be inquired into, when such inquiry is
proper. When any such suit or action shall have been matured, as
hereinabove provided, the court, if a term thereof be in progress, may
hear it forthwith although such suit or action had not been so ma-
tured before the commencement of such term.