Antoon v. Cleveland Clinic Foundation, 2016-Ohio-7432
Reminger Co., L.P.A. is pleased to announce that it successfully persuaded the Ohio Supreme Court to reverse the Eighth District Court of Appeals, in the case of Antoon v. Cleveland Clinic, Slip Opinion No. 2016-Ohio-7432. This appeal involved a challenge to Ohio’s medical malpractice statute of repose, which limits the period in which malpractice actions may be commenced. Plaintiffs attempted to bring a medical malpractice lawsuit more than five years after the care and treatment at issue. The trial court appropriately dismissed the lawsuit as untimely, but it was reinstated by the Eighth District.
Antoon involved a single proposition of law, to wit:
Ohio’s medical malpractice statute of repose applies whenever the occurrence of the act or omission constituting the alleged medical malpractice takes place more than four years prior to when the lawsuit is filed. The statute of repose applies regardless of whether a cause of action has vested prior to the filing of a lawsuit.
The Court of Appeals had held that once a lawsuit vests i.e., when a plaintiff knows of his or her cause of action, the statute of repose does not apply because the statute of repose can never extinguish a vested claim. The Supreme Court rejected this analysis and said that the medical malpractice statute of repose applies to both vested and unvested claims. In so doing, the Court clarified its earlier decision in Ruther v. Kaiser, 134 Ohio St.3d 408, 2012-Ohio-5686, noting that although Ruther involved a claim that was extinguished by the statute of repose that had not yet vested (because the plaintiff did not learn of his claim for many years), that did not mean the statute of repose can only apply to non-vested claims. Instead, the Court reviewed the “long history in western legal tradition” of statutes of repose, tracing such statutes back to the Limitation of Act 1623 enacted by the English Parliament, and also noted the United States Supreme Court decision of 1828 of Bell v. Morrison, 26 U.S. 351, 360 acknowledging the benefits of the statute of repose and other time limitations on actions. With that, the Court stated that medical providers should not be forced to defend against medical claims that occurred five, ten, twenty, or fifty years prior to the filing of a lawsuit, and further stated that the statute of repose is the only way to enforce this critical public policy decision enacted by the General Assembly.
The Court rejected plaintiffs’ contention that they had triggered Ohio’s savings statute and the protections that go with it when they filed a vaguely related but much different action in federal court within one year of the voluntary dismissal of their original suit. The Supreme Court made clear that in order to utilize the savings statute, the initial filed lawsuit and the refiled lawsuit must be “substantially similar.”
The Court expressly declined to decide whether the statute of repose can bar a cause of action filed more than four years from the care and treatment at issue, where the savings statute is properly utilized. Accordingly, where a case is timely filed but voluntarily dismissed several years later, the question remains whether the lawsuit can be refiled within one year, where such a refiling would be beyond the four year limitation of the statute of repose.
Five of the seven justices of the Supreme Court joined in the majority decision authored by Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor. One justice recused himself because of a potential conflict. The lone dissenting justice, Justice Paul Pfeifer, would have reversed with instructions to enter judgment in favor of the Cleveland Clinic defendants, but would have done so solely on the basis of plaintiffs’ failure to properly utilize the saving statute and would have avoided any discussion of the statute of repose.
If you have any questions regarding medical malpractice, statutes of limitations, or wish to have a copy of the opinion, please contact one of our Medical Malpractice or Appellate Law Practice Group members.
This has been prepared for informational purposes only. It does not contain legal advice or legal opinion and should not be relied upon for individual situations. Nothing herein creates an attorney-client relationship between the Reader and Reminger. The information in this document is subject to change and the Reader should not rely on the statements in this document without first consulting legal counsel.
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