§ 8.01-446.1.Keeping of docket books by clerk of court using micrographic process; form.

A judgment docketed on paper can take a clerk’s handwritten notation right in the margin when something changes — a payment, a release, an assignment. A judgment docketed by microphotographic process cannot, since there is no page to write on. Section 8.01-446.1 supplies the workaround: instead of a marginal note, the clerk records and indexes a separate certificate.

The statute lays out that certificate’s form in detail. It references the original book, page, or instrument number and the original docketing date, and it checks a box identifying what kind of update it reflects — an assignment, a release, a partial release, a credit, an additional debtor, or a new debtor name. Depending on which box is checked, the form calls for the judgment amount, the parties’ names, the assignee’s name, payment amounts and dates, or the debtor’s new name and the last four digits of a Social Security number if known.

The person submitting the certificate — the plaintiff, the plaintiff’s attorney, or an authorized agent — signs it under oath, in effect. Knowingly putting false information on that certificate is not a paperwork slip; the section makes it a Class 1 misdemeanor.