Understanding the Virginia Personal Injury Statute of Limitations

The general statute of limitations for personal injury claims in Virginia is two years, but with any legal rule, there are exceptions. Some of those exceptions include people that are under a disability. A disability is not necessarily just what you think of as a disability. A disability is also someone who’s a minor. So if someone does have an intellectual disability, then there may be reasons why the statute of limitations can be tolled, which means delayed. But more notably, it’s when someone is a minor. If someone is under the age of 18, that statute of limitations has an exception to it that makes it run for a longer period of time. What I always tell folks, though, is to treat your case as if your statute of limitations is two years. If you treat it as such, then you can’t run into any problems. It’s when you are trying to apply some of these exceptions to that two-year limit where things can start to get a little murky.

The other thing I will note is that there are additional time limits that can apply on certain cases depending on who the potential defendant is, and that would be claims against the state government. So if you make a claim against the Commonwealth of Virginia, if you make a claim against a city or county, or any sort of city or county entity, or the federal government in any of those circumstances, there is a whole different set of rules and time limitations that apply. So, my first point of advice to anyone is to treat everything as if it’s a two-year statute of limitations, and if you have any sort of potential government involvement, talk with a lawyer right away. There could be additional requirements that you need to fulfill if you’re gonna make a claim. [jingle] No need to worry, call Cooper Hurley. The Car Crash Experts. 333-3333.