Legislation: batch E — CA TN VA VT WA WI WV WY

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>

legislation/us/states/va/2020/sb-401.md

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+---
+type: "Bill"
+title: "Immunity of persons at public hearing; attorney fees and costs."
+description: "Immunity of persons at public hearing; attorneyfees; costs. Allows for the award of reasonable attorney feesand costs to any person who has a subpoena against him quashed inan action for statements made at a public hearing before the governingbody of a locality or other local entity when he is immune from liabilityfor such statements. Current law provides for the award of attorneyfees and costs upon the dismissal of such an action."
+jurisdiction: "us/states/va"
+legislature: "Virginia General Assembly"
+session: "2020"
+identifier: "SB 401"
+citation: "Virginia SB 401 (2020)"
+classification: ["bill"]
+subjects: []
+status: "enacted"
+primary_sponsors: ["Ghazala F. Hashmi"]
+version_count: 3
+action_count: 24
+vote_count: 6
+first_action: "2020-01-07"
+last_action: "2020-04-07"
+source: "openstates"
+source_identifier: "ocd-bill/6ceb2b27-a9a7-4ed4-8905-b93f770d205a"
+source_url: "https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?201+sum+SB401"
+source_hash: "f565cbc325cd7974e47888ef363f912dbc910c9f913ccd0c705e4cdd7e3d0b59"
+vintage: "2026-07-01"
+source_snapshot: "https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump"
+retrieved_at: "2026-07-06"
+confidence: "reported"
+tags: ["legislation", "bill", "us-va"]
+---
+
+# Virginia SB 401 (2020) — Immunity of persons at public hearing; attorney fees and costs.
+
+Immunity of persons at public hearing; attorneyfees; costs. Allows for the award of reasonable attorney feesand costs to any person who has a subpoena against him quashed inan action for statements made at a public hearing before the governingbody of a locality or other local entity when he is immune from liabilityfor such statements. Current law provides for the award of attorneyfees and costs upon the dismissal of such an action.
+
+## Version chain
+
+The bill's text revisions, in order — the diff chain from filing to enrollment.
+
+1. **Acts of Assembly Chapter text (CHAP0824)** (committee substitute) — [source](https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?201+ful+CHAP0824)
+2. **Bill text as passed Senate and House (SB401ER)** (committee substitute) — [source](https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?201+ful+SB401ER)
+3. **Bill text as passed Senate and House (SB401ER)** (committee substitute) — [source](https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?201+ful+SB401)
+
+## Votes
+
+- VOTE: Passage (98-Y 0-N) — **97–0** (pass) · lower
+- Reported from Judiciary (14-Y 1-N) — **14–1** (pass) · upper
+- Subcommittee recommends reporting (7-Y 0-N) — **7–0** (pass) · lower
+- Constitutional reading dispensed (37-Y 0-N) — **37–0** (pass) · upper
+- Reported from Courts of Justice (19-Y 2-N) — **19–2** (pass) · lower
+- Read third time and passed Senate (39-Y 1-N) — **39–1** (pass) · upper
+
+## Sponsors
+
+- Ghazala F. Hashmi — primary (person)
+- Adam P. Ebbin — cosponsor (person)
+
+## Timeline
+
+The legislative action history — every referral, reading, and vote.
+
+- **2020-01-07** Prefiled and ordered printed; offered 01/08/20 20100737D `introduction`
+- **2020-01-07** Referred to Committee on the Judiciary `referral-committee`
+- **2020-01-08** Moved from Courts of Justice to Judiciary due to a change of the committee name
+- **2020-01-24** Assigned Judiciary sub: Civil Law `referral-committee`
+- **2020-02-05** Reported from Judiciary (14-Y 1-N) `committee-passage`
+- **2020-02-07** Constitutional reading dispensed (37-Y 0-N)
+- **2020-02-10** Read second time and engrossed `reading-2`
+- **2020-02-11** Read third time and passed Senate (39-Y 1-N) `passage, reading-3`
+- **2020-02-14** Placed on Calendar
+- **2020-02-14** Read first time `reading-1`
+- **2020-02-14** Referred to Committee for Courts of Justice `referral-committee`
+- **2020-02-21** Assigned Courts sub: Civil `referral-committee`
+- **2020-02-24** Subcommittee recommends reporting (7-Y 0-N)
+- **2020-02-28** Reported from Courts of Justice (19-Y 2-N) `committee-passage`
+- **2020-03-03** Read second time `reading-2`
+- **2020-03-04** Read third time `reading-3`
+- **2020-03-04** Passed House (98-Y 0-N) `passage`
+- **2020-03-04** VOTE: Passage (98-Y 0-N)
+- **2020-03-07** Enrolled
+- **2020-03-07** Signed by President
+- **2020-03-08** Signed by Speaker
+- **2020-03-12** Enrolled Bill Communicated to Governor on March 12, 2020
+- **2020-03-12** Governor's Action Deadline 11:59 p.m., April 11, 2020
+- **2020-04-07** Approved by Governor-Chapter 824 (effective 7/1/20) `executive-signature`
+
+## Source
+
+OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot [2026-07-01](https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump); origin `ocd-bill/6ceb2b27-a9a7-4ed4-8905-b93f770d205a`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Virginia legislature records).
+