On January 15, 2026, the Ohio Supreme Court, in Sauter v. Integrity Cycles, L.L.C, determined that the one-year deadline to refile a dismissed lawsuit under the Ohio saving statute falls on the one-year anniversary date of the dismissal, not the following day.
In a 5-2 decision, the Ohio Supreme Court determined that the Tenth District Court of Appeals 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 Supreme Court rejected “the view that ‘one year’ really means a calendar year plus a day” and explained that the Ohio saving statute “means exactly what it says.” Sauter at ¶1. To comply with the statute, “the claim must be filed within one year—or by the anniversary—of the date that it was dismissed. Thus, a claim that was dismissed on January 5, 2022, would have to have been refiled by January 5, 2023.” Sauter at ¶1. Since the plaintiff refiled his complaint on January 6, 2023, it was filed one day beyond the statutory limit and was time-barred. Sauter at ¶20-21.