§ 8.01-446.Clerks to keep judgment dockets; what judgments to be docketed therein.

Section 8.01-446 is the foundation for Virginia’s judgment lien system: it requires every circuit court clerk to keep a judgment docket, whether in a well-bound book or through the microphotographic or electronic processes § 17.1-240 allows. Any money judgment rendered in the clerk’s own court goes on the docket without delay.

Judgments from elsewhere get docketed too, but only when an interested person asks and delivers an authenticated, legible abstract — this covers money judgments rendered by other Virginia courts, federal courts sitting in the Commonwealth, and district court judgments whose book has been filed or whose legible certified abstract has been delivered. A restitution order docketed under § 19.2-305.2 gets the same treatment as a specific money judgment. If the clerk finds an abstract illegible, he refuses to record it and returns it to whoever tendered it.

Each entry has to say something specific: that it is a judgment for a stated amount of money, in favor of a named party, against a named party, with that party’s address if known, and the date from which the judgment bears interest. The section also carves out an exception — judgments for certain court fees, assessments, and fines are not recorded against a defendant who has already paid them in full by the date of sentencing.