Present: All the Justices 

PATRICIA RIDDETT, ADMINISTRATRIX 

OF THE ESTATE OF 

CLIFFORD RIDDETT, DECEASED 

 OPINION BY JUSTICE A. CHRISTIAN COMPTON 

v. Record No. 970297 January 9, 1998 

VIRGINIA ELECTRIC AND POWER COMPANY 

 FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF NEWPORT NEWS 

Robert W. Curran, Judge 

 This is an appeal from a summary judgment entered in an 

action brought under the Death By Wrongful Act statutes, Code 

§§ 8.01-50 through -56. The question is whether the trial court 

correctly ruled that the plaintiff's action was time barred when 

a nonsuited action was not refiled within the time prescribed by 

the wrongful death statute of limitations in effect when the 

cause of action accrued. In other words, we must determine 

whether the trial court correctly refused to apply retroactively 

a tolling provision amendment to the wrongful death statute of 

limitations enacted after accrual of the instant cause of action. 

 The chronology is important. On July 3, 1987, Clifford 

Riddett was electrocuted while attempting to install ground 

anchors adjacent to his mobile home in Gloucester County. On 

June 29, 1989, with four days remaining on the applicable twoyear statute of limitations, appellant Patricia Riddett, 

Administratrix of the Estate of Clifford Riddett, Deceased, filed 

in the court below a wrongful death action, the original action, 

against appellee Virginia Electric and Power Company and others. 

 The plaintiff sought judgment for damages as a result of the 
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defendants' alleged negligence in causing the decedent's death. 

 On January 11, 1991, while the original action was still 

pending, this Court decided Dodson v. Potomac Mack Sales & Serv., 

Inc., 241 Va. 89, 400 S.E.2d 178. We held that the wrongful 

death statute of limitations, in former Code § 8.01-244(B), 

prescribed "a limitation period and a discrete tolling provision 

applicable to nonsuits of wrongful death actions." Id. at 93, 

400 S.E.2d at 180. We said that former Code § 8.01-229(E)(3), 

dealing generally with the subject of tolling statutes of 

limitations, was inapplicable to wrongful death actions because 

former § 8.01-244(B), dealing specifically with the subject, 

controlled. Id. at 94-95, 400 S.E.2d at 181. 

 Effective July 1, 1991, the General Assembly amended the 

foregoing statutes. Acts 1991, ch. 722. The amendments modified 

those statutes to provide a six-month tolling provision for 

nonsuited wrongful death actions. 

 On January 20, 1995, the plaintiff nonsuited the original 

action. On June 20, 1995, the plaintiff filed the present 

wrongful death action against Virginia Power, and others, making 

essentially the same allegations that had been made in the 

original action. Later, the plaintiff's case against the other 

defendants was settled. 

 Virginia Power filed a motion for summary judgment on the 

ground that the present action was untimely. Following a 

hearing, the trial court granted defendant's motion and dismissed 
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the action with prejudice. We awarded plaintiff this appeal from 

the November 1996 final order. 

 When the plaintiff's cause of action accrued, the 1984 

version of the wrongful death statute of limitations was in 

effect. It provided that if a wrongful death action is brought 

within two years after the death of the injured person and is 

dismissed without determining the merits, "the time such action 

is pending shall not be counted as any part of such period of two 

years and another action may be brought within the remaining 

period of such two years as if such former action had not been 

instituted." Code § 8.01-244(B) (1984 Repl. Vol.). 

 As we have said, in Dodson we held the foregoing statute 

controlled that wrongful death action, not Code § 8.01-229, the 

general nonsuit statute. As pertinent, the latter statute 

provided that if a plaintiff suffers a voluntary nonsuit, "the 

statute of limitations with respect to such action shall be 

tolled by the commencement of the nonsuited action, and the 

plaintiff may recommence his action within six months from the 

date he suffers such nonsuit, or within the original period of 

limitation, whichever period is longer." Code § 8.01-229(E)(3) 

(1984 Repl. Vol.). 

 In the 1991 amendments to the foregoing statutes, the 

General Assembly provided in § 8.01-229 that the six-month 

tolling provision for nonsuited actions "shall apply to all 

actions irrespective of whether they arise under common law or 
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statute." Code § 8.01-229(E)(3) (1992 Repl. Vol.). 

 At the same time, the legislature provided in § 8.01-244 

that if a plaintiff suffers a voluntary nonsuit, "the provisions 

of subdivision E 3 of § 8.01-229 shall apply to such a nonsuited 

action." Code § 8.01-244(B) (1992 Repl. Vol.). 

 On appeal, the plaintiff points out the 1991 amendments 

"extending the six-month tolling provisions following a nonsuit 

to wrongful death actions had been in existence for more than 

three and one-half years when plaintiff's original action was 

nonsuited." Continuing, plaintiff says there "is no dispute that 

the original action was timely filed" and there "can be no 

dispute that, at the time the 1991 statutory amendments became 

effective, plaintiff's claim was not time-barred." 

 Building on this premise, the plaintiff contends the 1991 

nonsuit tolling provisions are applicable to her cause of action 

by virtue of the provisions of Code § 8.01-1. That statute 

provides: "Except as may be otherwise provided in § 8.01-256 

[governing limitations affecting actions pending on October 1, 

1977] . . . , all provisions of this title shall apply to causes 

of action which arose prior to the effective date of any such 

provisions; provided, however, that the applicable law in effect 

on the day before the effective date of the particular provisions 

shall apply if in the opinion of the court any particular 

provision (i) may materially change the substantive rights of a 

party (as distinguished from the procedural aspects of the 
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remedy) or (ii) may cause the miscarriage of justice." The 

plaintiff argues that under those "plain terms . . . new or 

amended provisions of Title 8.01 apply to existing causes of 

action except in three instances," which, the plaintiff says, are 

inapplicable here. 

 Additionally, plaintiff contends there is a difference 

between "a limitation period" and "a tolling provision." A 

tolling provision, according to plaintiff, "confers neither right 

nor remedy," but rather "involves the procedural aspects of a 

remedy." Also, plaintiff argues, "nonsuit tolling provisions are 

not substantive and do not materially curtail any substantive 

rights" of defendant. 

 Elaborating, plaintiff contends the "purpose of the statute 

of limitations was served when plaintiff brought her original 

action within two years of" the decedent's death. She says 

defendant was put on timely notice of her claim, identified 

witnesses, gathered evidence, and engaged in extensive discovery 

before the original action was nonsuited. She argues defendant's 

"ability to defend plaintiff's claim was in no way impaired by 

the nonsuit of the original action and her filing of the second 

action six months later." 

 Finally, plaintiff contends the General Assembly 

"manifestly intended the nonsuit tolling provisions of the 1991 

amendments were to apply to actions for wrongful death pending on 

the effective date of those amendments." She says Code § 8.01-1 
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"could not be more clear." Also, she argues, Code § 8.01-

229(E)(3) was modified to apply to "all actions," thereby making 

"clear that the nonsuit tolling provisions applied not only to 

common law actions but to actions, such as those for wrongful 

death, created by statute." 

 Thus, plaintiff contends, the trial court erred in granting 

defendant's motion for summary judgment. We disagree. 

 If the 1984 versions of the applicable statutes control, 

particularly Code § 8.01-244(B), the present action was untimely. 

See Dodson, 241 Va. at 95, 400 S.E.2d at 181. When the original 

action was filed, only four days of the two-year limitations 

period remained. Thus, when the plaintiff took the nonsuit, she 

had four days to refile the action pursuant to the tolling 

provision of § 8.01-244(B) (time wrongful death action pending 

not to be counted as any part of two-year limitation period and 

another action may be brought within remaining two-year period). 

 The plaintiff waited, however, five months before refiling. 

 To salvage her time-barred action, the plaintiff seeks to 

apply the 1991 amendments retroactively. The success of that 

strategy depends upon whether the time provisions of the 1991 

amendments are procedural and not substantive. We hold they are 

substantive. 

 "Substantive rights, which are not necessarily synonymous 

with vested rights, are included within that part of the law 

dealing with creation of duties, rights, and obligations, as 
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opposed to procedural or remedial law, which prescribes methods 

of obtaining redress or enforcement of rights." Shiflet v. 

Eller, 228 Va. 115, 120, 319 S.E.2d 750, 754 (1984). 

 Actions for wrongful death did not exist at common law. 

The cause of action and the right to enforce it were created by 

statute. Dodson, 241 Va. at 92, 400 S.E.2d at 180. The 

limitation period contained in Code § 8.01-244(B) is directed 

specifically to the right of action provided by the wrongful 

death act; the limitation qualifies the right. See Jones v. R.S. 

Jones and Assocs., Inc., 246 Va. 3, 7, 431 S.E.2d 33, 35 (1993). 

 Thus, the limitation period for bringing the wrongful death 

action, including the tolling provision, is a substantive part of 

such action. Id.

 Consequently, because the wrongful death statutes 

inextricably bind the remedy to the right of recovery, the rights 

of the plaintiff and defendant under the statutes became fixed at 

the time the cause of action accrued and subsequent amendments do 

not apply retroactively. Barksdale v. H.O. Engen, Inc., 218 Va. 

496, 498-99, 237 S.E.2d 794, 796-97 (1977). This rule applies 

whether the amendments are to tolling provisions or statutes of 

limitation. See Dodson, 241 Va. at 93-94, 400 S.E.2d at 180. 

 Moreover, contrary to plaintiff's contention, Code § 8.01-1 

does not require retroactive application of the 1991 amendments. 

 Such application is prohibited by the provisions of Code § 1-16. 

 As pertinent, that statute provides: "No new law shall be 
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construed to repeal a former law . . . or any right accrued, or 

claim arising under the former law, or in any way whatever to 

affect . . . any right accrued, or claim arising before the new 

law takes effect; save only that the proceedings thereafter had 

shall conform, so far as practicable, to the laws in force at the 

time of such proceedings. . . ." See Harris v. DiMattina, 250 

Va. 306, 311-12, 462 S.E.2d 338, 340 (1995); Ferguson v. 

Ferguson, 169 Va. 77, 87-88, 192 S.E. 774, 777 (1937). 

 Code § 8.01-1 is an exception to the general rule of 

statutory construction set forth in § 1-16. Harris, 250 Va. at 

314, 462 S.E.2d at 341. The general rule is that changes to 

statutes affecting substantive rights apply prospectively and 

that the proceedings under those statutes will conform to the 

laws in effect on the date they are conducted. Section 8.01-1, 

the exception, deals only with changes in the procedural 

provisions of Title 8.01 and also sets forth certain 

circumstances when such procedural changes may not apply to 

existing causes of action. Because the 1991 amendments are 

changes to the substantive statutes under consideration, § 8.01-1 

has no application. 

 Finally, the plain language of the 1991 amendments does not 

support the plaintiff's contention that the General Assembly 

intended them to apply retroactively. The plaintiff urges 

retroactive application because the modification to Code § 8.01-

229(E)(3) applies to "all actions." 
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 But those words must be construed in context with the 

language they accompany. The statute provides that it applies 

"to all actions irrespective of whether they arise under common 

law or statute." Plainly, the "all actions" phrase means the 

amendment applies to both common law and statutory actions. The 

words refer to the type of action, and not to prospective or 

retroactive application of the amendment. Indeed, amendments to 

statutes of limitations are presumed to be prospective and not 

retroactive in their operation, in the absence of a clear 

legislative intent to the contrary. Ferguson, 169 Va. at 85, 192 

S.E. at 776. 

 Accordingly, we hold there is no error in the judgment of 

the trial court and it will be 

 Affirmed.