When determining the time to refile a dismissed lawsuit under the Ohio saving statute, the deadline falls on the one-year anniversary date of the dismissal, not the following day, the Supreme Court of Ohio ruled today.

In a 5-2 decision, the Supreme Court reversed the Tenth District Court of Appeals, finding it incorrectly allowed a plaintiff to extend the one-year refiling period by beginning the count on the day following the voluntary dismissal of his case.

The Tenth District’s decision to allow Thomas Sauter to begin the count on the day after he dismissed his January 2022 lawsuit was based on the 2016 Supreme Court decision in Cox v. Dayton Publ. Schools Bd. of Edn. The Court was split 4-3 in that case, which involved a three-month period to file an appeal of an arbitrator's decision.

Writing for the Court majority, Justice Megan E. Shanahan explained that the phrase “within a year” used in R.C. 2305.19 to extend deadlines in court cases means within a calendar year, ending on the one-year anniversary date of the dismissal. She explained that this interpretation is dictated by the plain meaning of the statute and by Ohio’s statutory framework for computing time.

“In everyday speech, ‘one year from today’ means the same calendar date next year, not the day after. By reading ‘within one year’ in R.C. 2305.19 to mean a year plus a day, the court of appeals departed from the plain meaning of the statute enacted by the General Assembly,” Justice Shanahan wrote.

Justices Patrick F. Fischer, R. Patrick DeWine, Jennifer Brunner, and Joseph T. Deters joined Justice Shanahan’s opinion.

In a dissenting opinion, Chief Justice Sharon L. Kennedy wrote that state law defines a “year” as “twelve consecutive months,” and it specifies that the time period ends on “the same day of the concluding month from which the computation begins.” The law also indicates that the computation begins the day after the triggering event. Sauter’s one-year period to refile his complaint started on the day after his case was voluntarily dismissed, and he made the deadline when he refiled his case on the same calendar day a year later, she concluded.

Justice Daniel R. Hawkins joined Chief Justice Kennedy’s opinion.

Motorcyclist Seeks to Extend Time to File Lawsuit
Following a 2018 motorcycle accident, Sauter filed a lawsuit in Franklin County Common Pleas Court against Integrity Cycles and owner Frank Ferri in March 2020. Ohio’s “saving statute,” R.C. 2305.19, provides a one-year window to dismiss a case and refile it.

Sauter voluntarily dismissed his case against Integrity on Jan. 5, 2022. The saving statute allowed Sauter to “commence a new action within one year after the date” he dismissed the case. Relying on the saving statute, Sauter refiled his lawsuit against the business on Jan. 6, 2023.

Integrity asked the trial court to grant summary judgment, arguing Sauter missed the deadline by one day, and the new lawsuit had to be filed on the anniversary of the day it was dismissed. The trial court agreed, citing the precedent of the 2017 Tenth District decision in Shue v. Ohio Dept. of Rehab. & Corr. That case held that the one-year period in the saving statute ended on the anniversary of the dismissal.

Sauter appealed the trial court’s decision to the Tenth District. Rather than relying on its own decision in Shue, the Tenth District found the Supreme Court’s decision in Cox applied. It found that Sauter complied with the filing deadline.

Integrity appealed to the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court Analyzed Time Computation Statutes
Because the saving statute allows a claim to be filed “within one year” of its dismissal, Justice Shanahan explained that the Court analyzed three statutes that dictate how legal dates are computed.

R.C. 1.14 provides that the time within which an act is required to be done is computed “by excluding the first and including the last day.” For Sauter’s case, the counting began on Jan. 6, 2022, the day after he dismissed the case.

In a non-leap year, 365 days compose a year, the opinion noted, and by counting every day, 365 days reached the end on Jan. 5, 2023. Sauter had to file his claim by Jan. 5, 2023, to meet the deadline, the Court stated.

Two other statutes support the interpretation, the opinion noted. R.C. 1.44(B) states that a year “means twelve consecutive months,” and R.C. 1.45 explains how to compute counting time in months. R.C. 1.45 states that the period for counting months begins “from a particular day,” and ends on the same numerical day in the concluding month. For months that do not have the same number of days (i.e., March 31 and April 30), the concluding day is the last day of the month.

The “particular day” Sauter dismissed his case was on Jan. 5, 2022, the opinion stated, and the period ended on the same numerical day at the conclusion of 12 months, which was Jan. 5, 2023.

“Thus, both R.C. 1.14 and 1.45 lead to the same result: one year from January 5, 2022, is January 5, 2023,” Justice Shanahan wrote. “And this is how we would expect it to be. If we agreed to meet a year from September  15, we agree to meet on September 15, not September 16.”

The Court reinstated the trial court’s judgment dismissing Sauter’s lawsuit as untimely.

Majority Missing Key Provision of State Law, Dissent Maintained
State law does not compute a year by counting days but rather defines a year as 12 consecutive months, Chief Justice Kennedy explained. The statutes instruct on how to calculate a filing deadline using months, she wrote.

R.C. 1.45 provides that “[i]f a number of months is to be computed by counting the months from a particular day, the period ends on the same numerical day in the concluding month as the day of the month from which the computation is begun.” In turn, R.C. 1.14 states that the computation starts by excluding the first and including the last day. The “particular day” referred to in R.C. 1.45 is the day of the event that triggers the need to count. In this case, Jan. 5, 2022, the date of the voluntary dismissal, is the day of the triggering event and is excluded from the computation, the dissent stated. Because a monthly calculation starts on the next day, the counting in Sauter’s case began on Jan. 6, 2022, the dissent maintained.

According to the dissent, the majority ignores the requirement of excluding the first day from the calculation by deciding that the day of the dismissal is the “particular day” to start the count. Since the period begins on the day after the triggering event, the 12-month period ended on Jan. 6, 2023, because that is the same numerical day in the concluding month of when the count started, the dissent concluded.

The chief justice therefore determined that Sauter’s complaint should not have been dismissed.

2024-0370. Sauter v. Integrity Cycles LLC, Slip Opinion No. 2026-Ohio-88.

View oral argument video of this case.

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