Limitation on action for defamation, etc
Applied in 15 court decisions — leading case Hatfill v. New York Times Co. (2005)
Most recently applied in Svetlana Lokhova v. Stefan Halper (April 2021)
1995, c. 9; 2015, c. 128.
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Every action for injury resulting from libel, slander, insulting words, or defamation shall be brought within one year after the cause of action accrues.
If a publisher of statements actionable under this section publishes anonymously or under a false identity on the Internet, an action may be filed under this section and the statute of limitations shall be tolled until the identity of the publisher is discovered or, by the exercise of due diligence, reasonably should have been discovered.
Official source: Virginia Law Portal (LIS). Reproduced from public-domain Virginia statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.