A. Unless otherwise provided in this section or by other statute, every action for personal injuries, whatever the theory of recovery, and every action for damages resulting from fraud, shall be brought within two years after the cause of action accrues.
B. Every action for injury to property, including actions by a parent or guardian of an infant against a tort-feasor for expenses of curing or attempting to cure such infant from the result of a personal injury or loss of services of such infant, shall be brought within five years after the cause of action accrues.
C. The two-year limitations period specified in subsection A shall be extended in actions for malpractice against a health care provider as follows:
1. In cases arising out of a foreign object having no therapeutic or diagnostic effect being left in a patient's body, for a period of one year from the date the object is discovered or reasonably should have been discovered; and
2. In cases in which fraud, concealment or intentional misrepresentation prevented discovery of the injury within the two-year period, for one year from the date the injury is discovered or, by the exercise of due diligence, reasonably should have been discovered. However, the provisions of this subsection shall not apply to extend the limitations period beyond ten years from the date the cause of action accrues, except that the provisions of § 8.01-229 A 2 shall apply to toll the statute of limitations in actions brought by or on behalf of a person under a disability.
Scarpa v. Melzig, 237 Va. 509, 379 S.E.2d 307 (1989). (The plaintiff brought an action against a surgeon for the negligent performance of a surgical sterilization procedure. The plaintiff, who assumed she was sterile, became pregnant several months after the surgery. The Supreme Court of Virginia held that the plaintiff's action was time-barred because the statute (Va. Code § 8.01-230) began to run on the date of her "injury," which occurred at the time of the surgery.)
Justice v. Natvig, 238 Va. 178, 381 S.E.2d 8 (1989). (Under the continuous treatment doctrine, the statute of limitations was tolled where the defendant non-negligently treated the plaintiff over an eight-year period for injuries caused by the defendant's surgical procedure. The two-year statute of limitations did not begin to run until the end of the treatment.)