§ 8.01-235.Bar of expiration of limitation period raised only as affirmative defense in responsive pleading.

Section 8.01-235 controls the procedural mechanics of raising a limitations defense, not the substance of any particular deadline. A defendant who wants to argue that a claim was filed too late has to say so specifically, as an affirmative defense set out in a responsive pleading. It is not a defense a court raises on its own, and it is not something a defendant can assume applies without pleading it.

The section goes further and takes two tools off the table for defendants. No statutory limitation period has jurisdictional effect, meaning a court is not stripped of the power to hear a case just because a filing deadline may have passed. And the limitations defense cannot be raised by demurrer — the pleading device used to challenge a complaint’s legal sufficiency on its face. Instead, it has to be pleaded and, if disputed, proven like any other affirmative defense.

Finally, the section applies this same rule across the board, regardless of whether the specific statute imposing the limitation period creates an entirely new right or only limits an existing one. That uniformity matters because Virginia law has historically drawn distinctions between limitations on newly created statutory rights and limitations on common-law rights; this section flattens that distinction for pleading purposes.