Case Title: Purcell v. Tidewater Construction Corp.

Citation: 

Docket Number: 941414

State: virginia

Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Date: 1995-06-09T00:00:00Z

Document:
Present: All the Justices 
 
EMMETT L. PURCELL, JR. 
 
v.  Record No. 941414 
OPINION BY JUSTICE ELIZABETH B. LACY 
                                        June 9, 1995 
TIDEWATER CONSTRUCTION CORPORATION 
 
 
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF RICHMOND 
 
Theodore J. Markow, Judge 
 
 
Emmett L. Purcell, Jr., filed a motion for judgment 
against his former employer, Tidewater Construction 
Corporation, on February 3, 1994, pursuant to Code § 65.2-308. 
 Purcell alleged that Tidewater wrongfully terminated his 
employment in retaliation for his filing a workers' 
compensation claim.  Tidewater responded that Purcell's cause 
of action was barred because it was not filed within one year 
of his termination as required by the limitation period set out 
in Code § 8.01-248.
1  Purcell maintained that his cause of 
action was timely filed because it was an action for personal 
injury and, therefore, subject to the two-year limitation 
period of Code § 8.01-243(A).  The trial court held that Code 
§ 8.01-248 applied to Purcell's cause of action and dismissed 
the action as untimely filed.  We awarded Purcell an appeal, 
and we will affirm the judgment of the trial court. 
 
Code § 8.01-248 states: 
 
Every personal action for which no limitation is 
otherwise prescribed, shall be brought within one 
year after the right to bring such action has 
accrued.
[
]
2
                     
    
1Tidewater filed a demurrer which the trial court treated as 
a plea in bar. 
    
2Effective July 1, 1995, the limitation period will be two 
years rather than one year.  Acts 1995, ch. 9. 
 
 
 
 
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A "personal action," for purposes of Title 8.01, Chapter 4, 
Limitations of Actions, is defined as "an action wherein a 
judgment for money is sought, whether for damages to person or 
property."  Code § 8.01-228.  Purcell's suit for money damages 
arising from wrongful termination, therefore, is by definition 
a personal action subject to the limitation period of Code 
§ 8.01-248 unless another limitation period is prescribed. 
 
In attempting to avoid the one-year period imposed by Code 
§ 8.01-248, Purcell asserts that Code § 8.01-243(A) prescribes 
the applicable limitation period.  As relevant to our inquiry, 
Code § 8.01-243 provides: 
 
 
A.  [E]very action for personal injuries, 
whatever the theory of recovery . . . shall be 
brought within two years after the cause of action 
accrues. 
 
 
B.  Every action for injury to property . . . 
shall be brought within five years after the cause of 
action accrues. 
 
Purcell argues that wrongful termination is not an injury to 
property and, therefore, is a personal injury action governed 
by the two-year limitation period of subsection A.  This 
construction, however, divides all personal actions into  
either injuries to persons or to property governed by Code 
§ 8.01-243, thereby rendering Code § 8.01-248 meaningless or 
unnecessary. 
 
More importantly, with the exception of actions based on 
 
 
 
 
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federally created rights,
3 we have not applied Code § 8.01-
243(A) to a cause of action which did not involve either mental 
or physical injury to the body.  For example, in personal 
actions such as fraud and defamation, which do not involve such 
injury, we have applied Code § 8.01-248.  See, e.g., Pigott v. 
Moran, 231 Va. 76, 81, 341 S.E.2d 179, 182 (1986)(fraud is 
"financial damage personal to the individual" covered by Code 
§ 8.01-248); Watt v. McKelvie, 219 Va. 645, 248 S.E.2d 826 
(1978)(defamation).
4  Our recent case of Glascock v. Laserna, 
247 Va. 108, 439 S.E.2d 380 (1994), is no exception.  In that 
case, we held that the cause of action asserted by the parents, 
wrongful birth, like the wrongful birth claim asserted in 
Naccash v. Burger, 223 Va. 406, 416, 290 S.E.2d 825, 831 
(1982), was a direct emotional injury to the parents governed 
by the limitation period of Code § 8.01-243(A).  Glascock, 247 
Va. at 111-12, 439 S.E.2d at 382.  Thus, in applying Code 
§ 8.01-243(A), we interpret "injury" in the same manner as that 
word is construed to determine when a cause of action for 
                     
    
3The United States Supreme Court, for purposes of 
consistency, has determined that actions brought pursuant to 42 
U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1988 are, as a matter of federal law, actions 
for personal injury and, therefore, subject to a state's 
limitation period for personal injury.  Goodman v. Lukens Steel 
Co., 482 U.S. 656, 661 (1987); Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.S. 261, 
275-76 (1985).  This application of the limitation period does 
not affect, and is unaffected by, our interpretation of whether 
a cause of action is a personal action for personal injuries. 
    
4In 1987, the General Assembly specifically provided that 
fraud was subject to the two-year limitation period.  Acts 1987, 
ch. 679. 
 
 
 
 
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personal injuries accrues: "[a] positive, physical or mental 
hurt to the claimant."  Locke v. Johns-Manville Corp., 221 Va. 
951, 957, 275 S.E.2d 900, 904 (1981). 
 
Purcell's suit for wrongful termination is not a suit for 
a "positive, physical or mental hurt" and he advances no other 
applicable limitation period.  Therefore, Purcell's cause of 
action for wrongful termination is subject to the one-year 
limitation period established in Code § 8.01-248. 
 
Accordingly, we will affirm the judgment of the trial 
court dismissing Purcell's action for wrongful termination as 
untimely filed. 
 
Affirmed.