This page uses extracted PDF text. Text can misread numbers, dates or table columns. Check the PDF before quoting or interpreting it. Redacted areas remain redacted.
- 9 -
2. Space
Virginia law does not define this factor, but in Funny Guy, the Supreme Court implied it
relates to the amount owed or the work provided. Funny Guy, 293 Va. at 155 (“Evaluating the
‘time’ and ‘space’ factors reveals a single payment dispute—concerning the same money for the
same work—that was ongoing and uninterrupted.” (citation omitted)). In this case, the circuit
court found that “[t]he . . . space factor for each water bill [wa]s different as the amount sought
under each bill [wa]s for a different billing period.”
3. Origin
Again, Virginia law does not define this factor. But the Supreme Court, in Funny Guy,
implied it is linked to motivation. Id. at 155. The circuit court concluded that “[t]he origin for
each water bill sought . . . [wa]s different because each bill originate[d] from a different billing
period and for a different amount of water that was provided.”
4. Motivation
The circuit court found that the City’s “motivation for recovery for each unpaid water bill
due in this suit [wa]s the same.” The City “want[ed] to get paid for the water [and sewer
services] that it provided.”
5. Convenient Trial Unit
Something forms a convenient trial unit if it “fit[s] within a single factual narrative.” Id.
See generally Fox, 234 Va. at 418-20, 423 (holding joinder was appropriate even though
multiple claims were brought against various defendants for actions that occurred in different
locations because the alleged misconduct, all of which related to the production and promotion
of a single concert, arose from a single transaction or occurrence). Relevant to this factor, the
circuit court noted only that, “[w]hile each transaction may form a convenient trial unit, no single
factor [wa]s dispositive [i]n the [c]ourt’s analysis.” Jump to an indexed page (12 of 12)