PRESENT: All the Justices

LINDA A. EBERHARDT

OPINION BY

v. Record No. 101761 JUSTICE WILLIAM C. MIMS

 January 13, 2012

FAIRFAX COUNTY EMPLOYEES’

RETIREMENT SYSTEM BOARD OF TRUSTEES

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF FAIRFAX COUNTY

Dennis J. Smith, Judge

In this appeal, we consider whether Code § 51.1-823 

confers jurisdiction upon a circuit court to hear an appeal 

from a decision of the board of trustees of a retirement 

system, other than a police retirement system, in a county 

having the urban executive form of government.

I. BACKGROUND AND MATERIAL PROCEEDINGS BELOW

Linda A. Eberhardt was an employee of the Fairfax County 

School Board from April 1991 to September 2009. In January 

2007, she suffered injuries to her back and neck while at work 

and was transported to a hospital by ambulance. She 

subsequently filed a claim with the Workers’ Compensation 

Commission. The parties stipulated that her injury arose out 

of and in the course of her employment, and that she was 

totally disabled from performing her pre-injury work duties 

from January 2007 to June 2007 and thereafter from August 2007.

As a school board employee, Eberhardt was a member of the 

Fairfax County Employees’ Retirement Systems (“FCERS”). FCERS 

members are eligible for service-connected disability 

retirement benefits if the disability is due to injury by 
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accident arising out of and in the course of their employment. 

Fairfax County Code § 3-2-35. Alternatively, members may be 

eligible for ordinary disability retirement benefits if the 

injury is not job-related. Fairfax County Code § 3-2-33. The 

determination to award either service-connected or ordinary 

disability retirement benefits is made by the FCERS board of 

trustees (“the Board”) on the recommendation of its medical 

examining board. Fairfax County Code §§ 3-2-33 and 3-2-35.

In July 2008, Eberhardt applied for service-connected 

disability retirement benefits. On the recommendation of the 

medical examining board, the Board denied her application in 

November 2008. Eberhardt appealed the Board’s decision as 

provided by Fairfax County ordinance. 1 In April 2010, the Board 

again denied her application for service-connected disability 

retirement benefits but awarded ordinary disability retirement 

benefits.

In May 2010, Eberhardt filed an appeal from the Board’s 

determination in the circuit court, ostensibly under Code 

§ 51.1-823, which provides that “[a]n appeal of right from the 

action of the retirement board of any county having an urban 

 1 Though described in the ordinance as an appeal, the 

procedure essentially is a rehearing because the adverse 

decision is reviewed by the very body that originally rendered 

it. See Fairfax County Code § 3-2-49(a) (“Any member adversely 

affected by a decision of the Board shall receive written 

notice of said decision and may, within thirty (30) days of 

receipt of said notice, request in writing a review by the 

Board of said decision, pursuant to procedures established by 

the Board.”).
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county executive form of government on any matter in which the 

board has discretionary power shall lie to the circuit court of 

the county which has jurisdiction of the board.” The Board 

filed a motion to dismiss asserting that the court lacked 

subject-matter jurisdiction to hear the appeal because Code 

§ 51.1-823 applies only to police officers’ retirement systems 

in counties with the urban executive form of government. The 

court granted the motion to dismiss and we awarded Eberhardt

this appeal.

II. ANALYSIS

Eberhardt asserts the circuit court erred (1) by 

considering legislative history to interpret Code § 51.1-823 

when, she contends, the statutory language is unambiguous and 

(2) by holding that the term “retirement board” meant only the 

retirement board of the police officers’ retirement system 

despite the plain language of the statute.

A. STANDARD OF REVIEW

We review a circuit court’s interpretation of statutes de 

novo. Jones v. Williams, 280 Va. 635, 638, 701 S.E.2d 405, 406 

(2010). When a statute is clear and unambiguous, “a court may 

look only to the words of the statute to determine its 

meaning.” Hubbard v. Henrico Ltd. P’shp, 255 Va. 335, 339, 497 

S.E.2d 335, 337 (1998). It may not “consider rules of 

statutory construction, legislative history, or extrinsic 

evidence.” Perez v. Capital One Bank, 258 Va. 612, 616, 522 
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S.E.2d 874, 876 (1999). However, while the Code of Virginia is 

often regarded as the complete statutory law of the 

Commonwealth, that is not the case. Statutes are enacted by 

the General Assembly but the Code is arranged and published by 

the Virginia Code Commission, an entity created by the General 

Assembly. Code § 30-145 and 30-146.

The General Assembly has authorized the Commission to 

codify the “general and permanent statutes” enacted each year, 

Code §§ 30-146 and 30-147(A), but the underlying enacted 

legislation is found in the Acts of Assembly and is the 

complete and accurate statutory law of the Commonwealth.2

 

Because the authoritative text of any statute is the text 

enacted by the General Assembly, reference to the legislation 

printed in the Acts of Assembly upon enactment does not offend 

the well-established rule against considering rules of 

statutory construction, legislative history, or extrinsic 

evidence. Simply put, the language of the Acts of Assembly is

the plain language of the statute.3

 2 Because the Commission’s statutory mandate includes only 

codifying general and permanent statutes, the Code omits many 

laws because they are not general, such as locality-specific 

charter amendments, e.g., 2011 Acts ch. 454, or are not 

permanent, such as the biennial appropriations act and its 

amendments, e.g., 2010 Acts ch. 874 and 2011 Acts ch. 890.

3 Rarely, the codified language of a statute may diverge 

from the language enacted by the General Assembly because of 

error by the Commission, in which case courts rely on the 

legislative text found in the Acts of Assembly. Alger v. 

Commonwealth, 267 Va. 255, 257 n.1, 590 S.E.2d 563, 564 n.1 

(2004) (When the Code diverges from the enacted bill, “[w]e 

consider only the language actually adopted by the General 
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Likewise, consideration of the entire statute – i.e., the 

entirety of a single legislative enactment as it appears in the 

Acts of Assembly as a whole – to place its terms in context to 

ascertain their plain meaning does not offend the rule because 

“it is our duty to interpret the several parts of a statute as 

a consistent and harmonious whole so as to effectuate the 

legislative goal. A statute is not to be construed by singling 

out a particular phrase.” Virginia Electric & Power Co. v. 

Board of County Supervisors, 226 Va. 382, 387-88, 309 S.E.2d 

308, 311 (1983) (internal quotation marks and alterations 

omitted). Accordingly, it is proper to consider the text of 

House Bill 821 as enacted on April 9, 1990, and printed as 

Chapter 832 of the Acts of Assembly of 1990 (“the 

Recodification Act”), to ascertain the plain meaning of Code 

§ 51.1-823 because that legislative enactment is the source of 

the codified text.

B. THE MEANING OF “BOARD” IN CODE § 51.1-823

Code § 51.1-823 refers to a board that is not defined in 

that section of the Code and it is the meaning of the word 

“board” that the parties dispute in this case: Eberhardt 

contends the word means the board of any retirement system 

created by a county having an urban executive form of 

 

Assembly.”). While that has not occurred in the statutes 

applicable in this case, the proposition underscores the 

primacy of the Acts of Assembly.
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government, while FCERS contends it means only the board of a 

police officers’ retirement system created by such a county.

A corollary of the rule that courts interpret a statute as 

a consistent and harmonious whole is that when a term is used 

in different sections of a statute, we give it the same meaning 

in each instance unless there is a clear indication the General 

Assembly intended a different meaning. See Board of 

Supervisors v. Marshall, 215 Va. 756, 761-62, 214 S.E.2d 146, 

150 (1975) (“[W]here a word is used in different sections of a 

statute and its meaning is clear in all but one instance, the 

same meaning will be attributed to it elsewhere unless there be 

something in the context which clearly indicates that the 

Legislature intended some other and different meaning.” 

(internal quotation marks and alterations omitted)). 

Accordingly, we may look to the remainder of the Recodification 

Act, particularly within the same subdivision in which the 

provision codified as Code § 51.1-823 appears, to ascertain 

whether the word “board” is clarified there. In this case, it 

is.

The provision codified as Code § 51.1-821 incorporates by 

reference Chapter 303 of the Acts of Assembly of 1944, titled 

“An ACT to provide for the establishment, maintenance and 

administration of a system of pensions and retirements for the 

benefit of the personnel of police departments of any county 
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[meeting certain criteria],” (“the Fairfax Police Retirement 

System Enabling Act”). Section 1 of that enactment states that

[t]he governing body of any county [meeting 

certain criteria met only by Fairfax County at 

the time of enactment] is empowered and 

authorized to create and establish as 

hereinafter provided a board to be known as the 

“policemen’s pension and retirement board” of 

the county, herein after referred to as the 

“board.”

1944 Acts ch. 303. Significantly, there is no alternative or 

superseding definition of the word “board” anywhere within the 

subdivision of the Recodification Act in which the provision 

codified as Code § 51.1-823 appears.

Eberhardt next contends that the definition of the word 

“board,” which is incorporated by operation of Code § 51.1-821 

into the article into which Code § 51.1-823 was codified, is 

superseded by the term “retirement board” that precedes it in 

the same sentence within Code § 51.1-823. By doing so, she 

posits that the word “board” is susceptible to two meanings 

within the same subdivision of the statute. Thus it may refer 

to two different boards within the same article.

“A statute is ambiguous if the text can be understood in 

more than one way or refers to two or more things 

simultaneously or when the language is difficult to comprehend, 

is of doubtful import, or lacks clearness or definiteness.” 

Covel v. Town of Vienna, 280 Va. 151, 158, 694 S.E.2d 609, 614 

(quoting Boynton v. Kilgore, 271 Va. 220, 227 n.8, 623 S.E.2d 

922, 926 n.8 (2006)) (internal quotation marks omitted). 
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Courts may consider the legislative history of the statutory 

language to resolve such an ambiguity. Virginia-American Water 

Co. v. Prince William County Serv. Auth., 246 Va. 509, 515, 436 

S.E.2d 618, 621 (1993).

As previously noted, the provision codified as Code 

§ 51.1-823 was enacted upon the approval of the Recodification 

Act. The Act was the legislative implementation of the 

Virginia Code Commission’s report on the revision of former 

Title 51 of the Code of Virginia. The report explains that the 

provision codified as Code § 51.1-823 preserved the same right 

of appeal provided by § 13 of the Fairfax Police Retirement 

System Enabling Act, which had subsequently been codified in 

former Code § 51-127.28. Virginia Code Commission, Report on 

the Revision of Title 51 of the Code of Virginia, House Doc.

No. 52, at 121 (1990). Both former Code § 51-127.28 and § 13 

of the Fairfax Police Retirement System Enabling Act provided 

that “[a]n appeal of right from the action of the board on any 

matter in which the board is given discretionary power shall 

lie to the circuit court of the county within whose 

jurisdiction the board is.” While the recodification removed 

former Code §§ 51-127.10 through -127.30 from the Code of 

Virginia, those provisions remain statutory law because Code 

§ 51.1-821 expressly incorporates the identical, earlier 

statutory language found in the Fairfax Police Retirement 

System Enabling Act prior to its codification in former Title 
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51. As noted above, § 1 of the Fairfax Police Retirement 

System Enabling Act defines the word “board” as used throughout 

the act as the board governing the police retirement system 

enabled by that act.

The Virginia Code Commission report thus resolves any

ambiguity about the word “board” as used in Code § 51.1-823. 

The word “board” there does not encompass the board of any 

retirement system created by a county having an urban executive 

form of government as Eberhardt contends and Code § 51.1-823 

confers no greater right of appeal than § 13 of the Fairfax 

Police Retirement System Enabling Act. Accordingly, the 

circuit court correctly ruled that Code § 51.1-823 did not 

confer jurisdiction upon it to hear Eberhardt’s appeal and we 

will affirm its judgment.

Affirmed.