§ 8.01-195.7.Statute of limitations.

Section 8.01-195.7 works alongside Section 8.01-195.6’s notice deadline to fix the outer boundary for a Tort Claims Act suit. A claim is forever barred unless the claimant files the required notice within one year after the cause of action accrues. Once notice is filed, an action under Section 8.01-195.4 may begin either after the claim is denied by the Attorney General, the Director of the Division of Risk Management, or, for a transportation district claim, the commission chairman, or after six months have passed from the notice’s filing without the claim being compromised and discharged under Section 8.01-195.5. Either way, the suit itself is forever barred unless it is commenced within eighteen months of the notice’s filing or within two years after the cause of action accrued.

These limitations periods bend for a few situations. They remain subject to the general tolling rule for claimants under a disability in Section 8.01-229 and to the pleading provision in Section 8.01-235. Medical malpractice claims for which the required notice has been given follow the additional timing rules in Section 8.01-581.9. And as a transition rule for claims that predate much of this scheme, anyone who filed a notice of claim against the Commonwealth before July 1, 1984, had two full years from that filing date to commence an action.