Background
Adam Kohn sued Glenmede Trust Company, N.A., and Robert Siewert in 2016 over an investment-management-services contract. He voluntarily dismissed that action in 2017 and filed a second action within one year. After the trial court dismissed the second action without prejudice under Civ.R. 41(A)(2) in August 2022, Kohn filed a third action in January 2023.
The trial court granted Glenmede judgment on the pleadings, concluding that Ohio’s saving statute, R.C. 2305.19(A), did not protect the third action and that the applicable limitations periods had expired. The Eighth District treated the claims separately: it allowed Kohn’s fraud, breach-of-contract, and promissory-estoppel claims to proceed but held that his negligence claims could not receive the saving statute’s benefit again. The appellate court also certified a conflict concerning whether the statute saves an action as a whole or individual claims independently.
The Court’s Holding
The Supreme Court of Ohio held that R.C. 2305.19(A) contains no one-use restriction. Once an action has been timely commenced, a plaintiff may commence another action after a qualifying failure other than on the merits, provided the new action is filed within one year of that failure or within the original limitations period, whichever is later. A claim is not barred merely because its limitations period expired before an earlier use of the saving statute.
Kohn’s second action was timely under the saving statute, failed other than on the merits when it was dismissed without prejudice, and was followed by the third action within one year. The court therefore held that the saving statute applied to the entire third action. It affirmed the Eighth District’s reinstatement of the fraud, breach-of-contract, and promissory-estoppel claims, reversed its affirmance of the negligence claims’ dismissal, and remanded the case. Justice Shanahan authored the majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice Kennedy and Justices DeWine, Brunner, Deters, and Hawkins; Justice Fischer concurred in the judgment only.
Key Takeaways
- Ohio’s saving statute does not limit a plaintiff to a single qualifying refiling.
- Courts need not determine claim by claim whether each limitations period had expired before a previous use of the statute.
- A preceding action must have been commenced or attempted, failed other than on the merits, and been followed by the new action within the statutory filing window.
Why It Matters
The decision confirms that an action properly refiled under Ohio’s saving statute may itself serve as the preceding action for another qualifying refiling. Expiration of an individual claim’s limitations period before an earlier refiling does not create a judicially imposed one-use bar.
The court acknowledged concerns about serial dismissals and refilings but declined to add a restriction absent from the statutory text, pointing instead to safeguards in Civ.R. 41. Because the case reached the court through a certified conflict, the court reviewed the entire case and reinstated the negligence claims despite Kohn’s failure to cross-appeal.