§ 56-469. Receipt and transmission of dispatches; venue
It shall be the duty of every telegraph company in this Commonwealth to receive dispatches and messages from and for other telegraph companies or lines doing the business of receiving and transmitting messages for compensation, and from and for any person. Such companies shall, upon the payment of the established charges, if demanded, transmit such dispatches and messages faithfully and impartially, and as promptly as practicable, and in the order of delivery to such company. For every failure to transmit a dispatch or message faithfully and impartially, and for every failure to transmit or deliver a dispatch or message as promptly as practicable, or in the order of its delivery to the company, the company shall forfeit the sum of fifty dollars to the person sending or wishing to send such dispatch or message, or to the person to whom such dispatch is addressed, or such message is to be sent; provided, that the recovery of one party entitled thereto shall be a bar to the recovery of the other party. The provisions of this section shall not prevent any such company from giving preference to dispatches or messages on official business from or to officers of the United States or the Commonwealth of Virginia, or from making arrangements with proprietors or publishers of newspapers for the transmission to them for publication of intelligence of general and public interest out of its regular order.
The venue for an action under this section shall be as specified in subdivision 7 of § 8.01-262.
(Code 1919, § 4042; 1922, p. 550; 1977, c. 624; 1989, c. 537.)
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