Legal Question in Family Law in Virginia

Re: child custody

A civil support suit is a cause of action separate and distinct from that

involving custody. Each has a separate and distinct statutory basis and is designed to achieve obviously different objectives.

It quite common, however, for courts to consolidate cases which may have been separately initiated where, for example, one of the parties has initiated a suit for child support(typically the mother of subject child) while the other party sues for custody(quite often the father), in such situations where all the parties,

including the subject child(ren) are the same, the court will consolidate the cases into one in which the separate issues will be heard and ruled upon, separately, one at a time.