COLUMBUS — The Ohio House has passed legislation resetting when the clock starts on defamation lawsuits, a direct response to an Ohio Supreme Court ruling last year.
House Bill 441, sponsored by Reps. Adam Mathews (R-Lebanon) and Brian Stewart (R-Ashville), requires libel and slander actions to be filed within four years after the allegedly defamatory statement is made — replacing the current one-year window and, sponsors say, restoring more than a century of Ohio precedent.
The bill answers the Supreme Court’s 2025 decision in Weidman v. Hildebrant, which held that the statute of limitations begins when the plaintiff discovers the statement rather than when it is published — a ruling sponsors warn could allow defamation suits years or even decades after the fact.
“The proper role of the legislature is to write laws, and the proper role of a judge is to apply the law as written, with the plain meaning at the time they are written,” Mathews said. Stewart called it “a commonsense bill that safeguards Ohioans’ ability to exercise their freedom of speech without living under a never-ending cloud of legal liability.”
