VIRGINIA: Civil Jury Trials Are On The Decline:

In 2000, there were 1,514 civil jury trials in Virginia.  In 2009, that number declined 61 percent to only 592.  Now that the jurisdictional limit of the General District Courts has been increased from $15,000 to $25,000, there will probably be even fewer Virginia civil jury trials in the future.  Query whether the plaintiffs are settling for too little, the defendants are settling for too much, or something else is causing litigants to resolve their cases short of jury selection.