Chap. 326.—An ACT to amend and re-enact an act entitled “an act to require
persons or corporations doing business under an assumed or fictitious name,
and persons doing business as copartners, to sign, acknowledge, and file a
certificate; to designate what the certificate shall contain; to provide for
recordation of such certificate, to fix fees of the clerk, and to provide a
penalty for violation of this act,’ approved March 23, 1922, in relation to
persons or corporations doing business under assumed or fictitious names, or
as partners, making and recording certain certificates, appointing statutory at-
torney and providing for personal judgments in certain cases, upon service
of process on such agent. [S B 267]

Approved March 27, 1936

1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia, That an act
entitled, “an act to require persons or corporations doing business
under an assumed or fictitious name, and persons doing business as
copartners to sign, acknowledge, and file a certificate; to designate
what the certificate shall contain; to provide for recordation of such
certificate, to fix fees of the clerk, and to provide a penalty for viola-
tion of this act,” approved March twenty-third, nineteen hundred and
twenty-two, be amended and re-enacted so as to read as follows:

Section 1. No person nor corporation shall conduct or transact
business in this State under any assumed or fictitious name unless
such person or persons or corporation shall sign and acknowledge a
certificate setting forth the name under which such business is to be
conducted or transacted, and the names of each and every person or
corporation owning the same, with their respective post office and
residence addresses, and where the corporation is a foreign corpora-
tion the date of the certificate of authority to do business in Virginia
issued to it by the State Corporation Commission, and file the same
in the office of the clerk of the court in which deeds are recorded
in the county or corporation wherein the business is to be conducted.

Where business is conducted in this State under an assumed or
fictitious name by a corporation, such corporation shall file in the
office of the clerk of the State Corporation Commission a copy of
such certificate, duly attested by the clerk of the court in which the
original is on file. Such person or persons owning and transacting
business as above set out who do not reside in the county or city, in
which a place of business is operated, shall, before commencing to
do business in said city or county, by written power of attorney,
appoint some practicing attorney at law residing in said county or
city wherein the place of business is located, its attorney or agent,
upon whom all legal processes against the owner may be served, and
who shall be authorized to enter an appearance in its own behalf.
Such power of attorney shall be recorded in the clerk’s office in which:
deeds are recorded, of the county or city wherein the place of busi-
ness is located. Such power of attorney shall remain effective until
lawfully revoked, and when lawfully revoked, a new power of attorney
to the same or some other attorney shall be immediately executed
and recorded. Written notice of the resignation of the attorney or
of the voluntary revocation of such power of attorney by the owner
shall be forthwith filed in the clerk’s office where it is recorded.
And the clerk shall note such resignation or revocation on the margin
of the page on the book wherein the power of attorney is recorded, and
be entitled to a fee of twenty-five cents therefor; and until this is
done, such revocation shall be ineffective, and the original power of
attorney shall remain effective. If there be no such attorney in fact
residing in such county or city, or if for any reason such attorney
in fact be not subject to personal service, then all legal processes
against such owner may be served upon the clerk of the court of
such county or city wherein such place of business is located having
jurisdiction of the suit, action or proceeding.

When process or notice is so served under the provisions of this
act, upon the clerk of the court of the county or city wherein is located
the place of business, such clerk upon whom such proceses or notice
is served shall forthwith mail a copy of such process or notice to the
defendant or defendants therein named at such address, if any, as may
have been filed, of the owner, with such clerk. And such clerk shall
certify in such papers in the cause the fact of mailing such process
or notice, and the address to which it was mailed, or that no such
address is on file;

And such process or notice when so served and certified to have
been so mailed, or if no such address has been filed, the services as
herein provided alone shall constitute personal service, and authorize a
judgment or decree in personam against such owner.

For mailing the process or notice and the making of certificate of
such mailing, or the inability to secure the proper address for mailing,
the clerk of any court subject to the provision of this act as amended
shall be entitled to a fee of one dollar to be advanced by the plaintiff
and to be taxed as a part of the costs in the proceeding.

Each such person or corporation now doing business in Virginia
under an assumed or fictitious name shall immediately comply with the
foregoing provisions.

Section 2. No two or more persons shall carry on business as
copartners unless they sign and acknowledge a certificate setting
forth the full names of each and every person composing the co-
partnership, with their respective post office and residence addresses,
the name and style of the firm, the length of time for which it is to
continue, and the locality of their place of business, and file the same
in the office of the clerk of the court in which deeds are recorded in
the county or corporation wherein the business is to be conducted ;
and every change in said copartnership must be evidenced by a new
certificate. The clerk with whom the certificate provided for in this,
and the preceding, section of this act is filed, shall keep a book in
which all such certificates shall be recorded, with their date of record,
and shall keep a register in which shall be entered in alphabetical
order the name under which every such business is conducted, the
name of the statutory agent, and the names of every person owning
the same. The clerk shall be entitled to a fee of fifty cents for filing
and recording such certificates and entering such names. No license
shall be issued by the commissioner of the revenue except and until
the above certificates have been made and filed in the clerk’s office
and evidence of same produced before him.

Section 3. Any person violating any of the provisions of this act
shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof,
shall be fined not exceeding one thousand dollars, or imprisonment
not more than one year, or both.