Title: Riddett v. VEPCO
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 970297
State: Virginia
Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court
Date: January 9, 1998

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 two-
year 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.