Present: Hassell, C.J., Lacy, Keenan, Koontz, Kinser, and
Lemons, JJ., and Russell, S.J.
STEPHEN KOPALCHICK OPINION BY
SENIOR JUSTICE CHARLES S. RUSSELL
v. Record No. 061368 June 8, 2007
CATHOLIC DIOCESE OF RICHMOND
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF RICHMOND
Walter W. Stout, III, Judge
This appeal requires us to construe Code § 8.01-249(6),
which governs the accrual date of the statute of limitations
for personal injury resulting from sexual abuse that occurred
during the infancy or incapacity of the victim. Specifically,
the question before us is whether the statutory change in the
accrual date affects the rights of a defendant that is not a
“natural person.”
Facts and Proceedings
Stephen Kopalchick brought an action to recover damages
for personal injury against six defendants, including “The
Catholic Diocese of Richmond, a religious corporation.”1 His
motion for judgment asserted that he had been sexually abused
from 1962 to 1966, when he was between the ages of 10 and 14
years, by two priests employed and governed by the defendant
diocese. He alleged that he had not been aware, until 2002,
that the severe mental, emotional and physical injuries from
1
The motion for judgment alternatively describes the
diocese as a “religious association.”
which he suffered were the result of the sexual abuse
committed upon him by the priests in the 1960’s. His claim
for damages against the diocese was based upon theories of
respondeat superior, negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, and
“negligent misrepresentation.”
The diocese filed a plea in bar of the statute of
limitations. The circuit court sustained the plea and
dismissed the case with prejudice.2 We awarded the plaintiff
an appeal.
Analysis
A. Background
The long-standing statute of limitations for personal
injury in Virginia has been the two-year period now set forth
in Code § 8.01-243(A). In general, the limitation period
begins to run when the right of action accrues, which is “the
date the injury is sustained in the case of injury to the
person . . . and not when the resulting damage is discovered.”
Code § 8.01-230. A person who is an infant at the time the
cause of action accrued can sue upon it “within the prescribed
2
The court’s order dismissed the case as to all six
defendants. Four of the original defendants were never served
with process. The fifth original defendant, the bishop of the
diocese, was served but later retired. The current bishop of
the diocese became a party by substitution for his predecessor
in office. The plaintiff appeals only the dismissal of the
diocese, not the other five defendants.
2
limitation period after such disability is removed.” Code
§ 8.01-229(A)(1). Thus, prior to 1991, a plaintiff who was
injured by sexual abuse while a child could bring an action up
until his twentieth birthday, but not thereafter.
B. The 1991 Amendment
The General Assembly, by 1991 Acts, ch. 674, effective
July 1, 1991, enacted the following provisions:
In actions for injury to the person, whatever
the theory of recovery, resulting from sexual abuse
occurring during the infancy or incompetency of the
person, [the cause of action shall be deemed to
accrue] when the fact of the injury and its causal
connection to the sexual abuse is first communicated
to the person by a licensed physician, psychologist,
or clinical psychologist. However, no such action
may be brought more than ten years after the later
of (i) the last act by the same perpetrator which
was part of a common scheme or plan of abuse or (ii)
removal of the disability of infancy or
incompetency.
. . . .
[T]he provisions of subdivision 6 of § 8.01-249
shall apply to all actions filed on or after July 1,
1991, without regard to when the act upon which the
claim is based occurred provided that no such claim
which accrued prior to July 1, 1991, shall be barred
by application of those provisions if it is filed
within one year of the effective date of this act.
In Starnes v. Cayouette, 244 Va. 202, 419 S.E.2d 669
(1992), we held both the foregoing provisions to be
unconstitutional because they violated the due process
guarantees of Article I, § 11 of the Constitution of Virginia.
Id., at 212, 419 S.E.2d at 675. We reached that conclusion in
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the light of a series of our decisions dating back to 1876 in
which we had held that the legislature could not, by
retroactive enactments, interfere with either vested or
substantive rights. In Starnes, we concluded that the right
to interpose the defense of the statute of limitations was a
substantive property right, constitutionally protected from
infringement by retroactive legislation. Id. at 209, 419
S.E.2d at 673.
C. The Constitutional Amendment
In the wake of Starnes, the General Assembly in the next
two successive years, Acts 1993, ch. 892 and Acts 1994, chs.
405 and 818, approved and submitted to a vote of the people
the following proposed constitutional amendment:
The General Assembly's power to define the
accrual date for a civil action based on an
intentional tort committed by a natural person
against a person who, at the time of the intentional
tort, was a minor shall include the power to provide
for the retroactive application of a change in the
accrual date. No natural person shall have a
constitutionally protected property right to bar a
cause of action based on intentional torts as
described herein on the ground that a change in the
accrual date for the action has been applied
retroactively or that a statute of limitations or
statute of repose has expired.
The amendment was ratified by a vote of the people at the
general election of November 8, 1994 and became effective
January 1, 1995. It now appears as the fourth paragraph of
Article IV, § 14 of the Constitution of Virginia.
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D. The Present Statute
Pursuant to the constitutional amendment, the General
Assembly amended and reenacted Code § 8.01-249(6) in 1995, in
1996, and again in 1997. Pursuant to 1997 Acts, chs. 565 and
801, Code § 8.01-249(6) was cast in its present form effective
on January 1, 1998. It now provides in pertinent part:
[The cause of action shall be deemed to accrue in
actions] for injury to the person, whatever the
theory of recovery, resulting from sexual abuse
occurring during the infancy or incapacity of the
person, upon removal of the disability of infancy or
incapacity as provided in § 8.01-229 or, if the fact
of the injury and its causal connection to the
sexual abuse is not then known, when the fact of the
injury and its causal connection to the sexual abuse
is first communicated to the person by a licensed
physician, psychologist or clinical psychologist.
The plaintiff argues that a plain reading of this
section leads to the inevitable conclusion that the
circuit court erred in sustaining the plea in bar. He
argues that the priests sexually abused him while he was
under the disability of infancy, that although he was
injured then, he suppressed knowledge of the injury and
did not become aware of the fact of his injury or of the
causal connection between the sexual abuse and the injury
until informed of them by a psychologist in 2002. His
cause of action then accrued, and the limitation period
only then began to run. He brought this action in 2003,
and contends that it was therefore timely.
5
The diocese argues that the statute can only be
construed in light of the constitutional enabling
provision under which it was adopted. That amendment to
the Constitution, quoted above, read as a whole,
restricts its application to “natural persons.”
Therefore, the diocese argues, Code § 8.01-249(6) must be
read as applying only to “natural persons,” a category to
which the diocese does not belong. Thus, the argument
concludes, in the case of a defendant that is not a
“natural person,” the former state of the law remains in
effect, and a plaintiff’s right of action is barred on
his 20th birthday. The plaintiff in the present case
passed that date more than 30 years before filing this
action.
A “natural person” has been defined as “a human
being, as opposed to an artificial or juristic entity.”
Shawmut Bank, N.A. v. Valley Farms, 610 A.2d 652, 655
(Conn. 1992); “a human being, as distinguished from an
artificial person created by law.” Industry to Industry,
Inc. v. Hillsman Modular Molding, Inc., 633 N.W.2d 245,
249 (Wis. App. 2001). The term “diocese” refers to a
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territorial subdivision,3 now defined as “the territorial
unit of [a] church, governed by a bishop." Black's Law
Dictionary 490 (8th ed. 2004). In oral argument, counsel
for the diocese referred to it as an “ecclesiastical
construct.” Plaintiff’s counsel did not contend that it
was a “natural person,” but characterized it as an
“association of natural persons.” We hold that the
diocese is not a “natural person” as the term is used in
the constitutional amendment.
The purpose of the constitutional amendment is
clear: To empower the General Assembly to make a
retroactive change in the accrual date of the right of
action for childhood sexual abuse, extending it from the
date the injury was sustained to the date the injured
person was made aware by a licensed professional of the
fact of the injury and that the childhood sexual abuse
was its cause. Under our holding in Starnes, that was a
power the General Assembly lacked before the effective
date of the constitutional amendment. As with any grant
of power made by the people to their government, the
people have the right to limit or circumscribe the grant
3
Derived from the Latin dioecesis, "an administrative
division of a country." Webster’s Third New International
Dictionary 636 (1993).
7
as they may see fit. In this case, the people of
Virginia limited the grant in two ways: the circumstances
to which it was to apply and the type of defendant who
would be affected. First, the people expressly limited
the ambit of the constitutional amendment to “an
intentional tort committed by a natural person.” Then,
in contemplation of the constitutional protection given
by Starnes to a defendant’s right to interpose the bar of
the statute of limitations in such cases, the people went
further and removed the defendant’s “constitutionally
protected property right to bar a cause of action based
on intentional torts as described herein on the ground
that a change in the accrual date for the action has been
applied retroactively or that a statute of limitations or
statute of repose has expired.” Significantly, the
people expressly limited the legislative power to remove
that constitutional right, restricting application of the
power to defendants who are natural persons.
The office and purpose of the constitution is
to shape and fix the limits of governmental
activity. It thus proclaims, safeguards and
preserves in basic form the pre-existing laws,
rights, mores, habits and modes of thought and life
of the people as developed under the common law and
as existing at the time of its adoption to the
extent and as therein stated.
Its interpretation and construction are to be
made with recognition of the fact that it is based
8
upon and announces the fundamental theory and
principles of sovereignty and government as
developed under the common law.
The constitution must be viewed and construed
as a whole, and every section, phrase and word given
effect and harmonized if possible.
. . . .
The purpose and object sought to be attained by
the framers of the constitution is to be looked for,
and the will and intent of the people who ratified
it is to be made effective.
Dean v. Paolicelli, 194 Va. 219, 226, 72 S.E.2d 506, 510-11
(1952) (internal citations omitted).
Applying those principles, we are of opinion that the
intent of the framers of the constitutional amendment, and of
the people ratifying it, was to empower the General Assembly
to remove the constitutionally protected right of a defendant
to bar a cause of action on the grounds stated in the
amendment only in cases where the defendant is a “natural
person.” With respect to a defendant that is not a “natural
person,” the pre-existing state of the law, as interpreted in
Starnes, continues in effect.
In construing a statute, it is the duty of the courts so
to construe its language as to avoid a conflict with the
constitution. Jeffress v. Stith, 241 Va. 313, 317, 402 S.E.2d
14, 16 (1991). We attribute to the legislature the intent to
enact laws that conform to the constitution in all respects.
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Applying that principle, we construe Code § 8.01-249(6) to
apply only to a defendant who is a “natural person,” as
authorized by the constitutional amendment.
Conclusion
Because the diocese is not a “natural person,” Code
§ 8.01-249(6) has no effect upon its constitutionally
protected right to rely on the bar of the statute of
limitations. We find no error in the decision of the circuit
court and will therefore affirm its judgment.
Affirmed.
10