The statute of limitations in Ohio is the deadline for filing a civil lawsuit or bringing criminal charges, and it varies sharply by the type of case. Personal injury and wrongful death claims must be filed within two years. Written contract disputes get six years, oral contracts four, and medical malpractice just one. On the criminal side, most felonies carry a six-year prosecution window, misdemeanors two years, rape and sexual battery twenty-five years, and murder has no deadline at all.
Civil Filing Deadlines by Claim Type
Ohio law sets a different clock for almost every kind of civil claim. The ones people run into most often:
Personal Injury, Wrongful Death, and Product Liability
You have two years from the date of injury to sue for bodily harm or damage to personal property. That covers car accidents, slip-and-falls, and other negligence claims.1Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Code 2305.10 – Bodily Injury or Injuring Personal Property Product liability claims use the same two-year window.
Wrongful death also carries a two-year limit, but the clock starts on the date of death, not the date of the act that caused it.2Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Code 2125.02 – Wrongful Death Actions That matters when someone lives for months or years after the original incident.
Medical Malpractice
Medical malpractice has a one-year statute of limitations, running from the date of injury or from when you discovered (or should have discovered) the harm.3Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Code 2305.113 – Medical Malpractice Actions A separate four-year outer cutoff applies regardless of discovery; more on that below.
Contracts
Written contract disputes get six years.4Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Code 2305.06 – Actions on Written Contracts Oral and implied agreements get four.5Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Code 2305.07 – Contract Not in Writing, Statutory Liability, Consumer Transactions Whether an agreement counts as written usually turns on whether the essential terms were documented and signed, not just discussed over email.
Property Damage, Defamation, and Legal Malpractice
Property damage and trespass claims have a four-year deadline.6Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Code 2305.09 – Four Years, Certain Torts Defamation (libel and slander) and legal malpractice both have a one-year window.7Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Revised Code 2305.11 – Time Limitations for Bringing Certain Actions For legal malpractice, the year begins when you discover the attorney’s error or when the attorney-client relationship ends, whichever comes later.
Criminal Prosecution Deadlines
Ohio ties prosecution deadlines to the seriousness of the charge, and the range is wide.8Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Code 2901.13 – Limitation of Criminal Prosecutions
- Murder and aggravated murder: no limit. Charges can be brought decades after the killing.
- Rape and sexual battery: 25 years.
- A group of serious violent crimes including voluntary manslaughter, kidnapping, human trafficking, arson, robbery, burglary, and felonious assault on a peace officer: 20 years.
- Most other felonies: 6 years.
- Misdemeanors: 2 years.
- Minor misdemeanors, including most traffic infractions: 6 months.
Two exceptions push these windows further. In rape and sexual battery cases where DNA evidence identifies a suspect after the 25-year window closes, prosecutors get an additional five years from the date the match is confirmed. For physical or mental abuse of a child under eighteen, the clock does not start until the victim turns eighteen or a public children services agency or peace officer is notified.
When the Clock Can Be Paused
Several circumstances pause (toll) the running of the deadline. Watch for them before assuming a claim is dead.
If the defendant leaves Ohio, hides, or otherwise makes themselves unavailable after a claim arises, the time they are away does not count.9Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Revised Code 2305.15 – Tolling During Defendant’s Absence One important limit: absence-tolling does not apply to the statutes of repose discussed below.
If you were a minor or legally incapacitated when the claim arose, the limitations period does not begin until the disability ends. For minors, that means the clock starts at age eighteen.10Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Revised Code 2305.16 – Tolling Due to Minority or Unsound Mind
Fraudulent concealment by the defendant can also extend the deadline until you discover, or reasonably should have discovered, the deception. Ohio courts apply this narrowly. You have to show that the concealment itself kept you from learning about the claim.
Active-duty military service is excluded from the calculation under the federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, whether the servicemember is a potential plaintiff or defendant.11Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 50 USC 3936 – Statute of Limitations That protection applies in Ohio courts.
Absolute Cutoffs: Statutes of Repose
A statute of repose is a harder deadline than a statute of limitations. Tolling events do not pause it, and the discovery rule cannot push past it. Ohio applies two that matter for most people.
Claims against architects, engineers, and contractors for defective design or construction must be filed within ten years of the project’s completion.12Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Revised Code 2305.131 – Ten-Year Statute of Repose for Certain Premises Liability Actions A hidden structural problem that causes an injury eleven years after a building is finished is barred, even if no one could have found it earlier.
Medical malpractice claims are barred four years after the act of malpractice, regardless of when the patient discovers the injury.3Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Code 2305.113 – Medical Malpractice Actions The one-year discovery rule can extend the limitations period inside that four-year wall, but not past it. The main exception is for minors and those of unsound mind.
Ohio’s Saving Statute Gives a Second Chance
If your civil case is dismissed for reasons unrelated to its merits, such as a procedural defect or voluntary dismissal, Ohio’s saving statute gives you one year from the date of dismissal to refile. This works even if the original statute of limitations has already expired.13Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Code 2305.19 – Saving Statute It is one of the few genuine second chances in Ohio civil procedure, and lawyers lean on it regularly when a case falls apart on technical grounds. Count the year to the exact calendar anniversary of the dismissal; one day late is too late.
Federal Deadlines That Also Apply
Some clocks running against Ohio residents come from federal law, and they are easy to miss.
Workplace discrimination charges filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission generally must be submitted within 180 days of the discriminatory act. Because Ohio has its own civil rights agency with a worksharing agreement, that window extends to 300 days for most Ohio workers.14U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Time Limits for Filing a Charge No saving statute covers a missed EEOC deadline.
The IRS generally has three years from the date a return was filed (or its due date, whichever is later) to assess additional tax.15Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 6501 – Limitations on Assessment and Collection That extends in cases of substantial unreported income or an unfiled or fraudulent return.
What Happens If You Miss the Deadline
Filing a civil case after the statute of limitations has run almost always ends in dismissal. The defendant raises the deadline as an affirmative defense, and if the court agrees the time has passed, the case is thrown out without any look at the facts. Strong evidence does not matter. Clear liability does not matter.
In criminal cases, an expired statute of limitations bars prosecution entirely. If charges are filed too late, the defendant can move for dismissal and the court must grant it.8Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Code 2901.13 – Limitation of Criminal Prosecutions The DNA and child-abuse exceptions are narrow carve-outs, not general judicial discretion. Outside those situations, the deadline is the deadline.