You hate to see it: In Wolfe v. Wolfe, the ex husband filed a pro se motion to modify child support. The court granted the motion in part and denied it in part. In its final order, it said: “Should either of the parties wish to appeal they must at the moving party’s cost obtain the recording of the hearing and pay for a certified court reporter to transcribe the hearing in lieu of a statement of facts.”
A trial court obviously cannot do that. Rule 5A:8 lets a party submit a written statement of facts, and it provides a mechanism for correcting any mistakes in that statement. Nor was this an especially novel question; SCOVA dealt with a similar set of facts in Shapiro v. Younkin, 279 Va. 256 (2010). And so the CAV had no trouble reversing, vacating, and remanding. It pointed out that if it’s impossible to prepare a written statement of facts, then the proper remedy is a new trial.
The deeper issue is more interesting: Given the prevalence of smart phones and AI transcription software, for how much longer will court reporters be a thing? What is the objection to letting a litigant like Mr. Wolfe bring a phone (or tablet or laptop) to the hearing, have an app transcribe it in real time, and copy-paste that transcript into a written statement of facts?