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.