COLUMBUS — Ohio’s saving statute does not limit how many times a lawsuit may be refiled, provided its requirements are met each time, the Supreme Court of Ohio ruled Thursday, Oct. 15, allowing investor Adam Kohn’s lawsuit against Glenmede Trust Company to go forward on its third filing.
The law at issue, R.C. 2305.19(A), gives a plaintiff whose timely filed case fails for a reason other than the merits a fresh window to start again — within one year of that failure, or within the original statute-of-limitations period, whichever comes later. The question before the court was whether that rescue could be used more than once, and whether it applies to a lawsuit as a whole or claim by claim.
Kohn hired Glenmede to create a trust and help manage shares of stock he owned, and he alleged that advice from a Glenmede advisor cost him millions of dollars in potential investment income. He first sued in Cuyahoga County in 2016, bringing eight claims that included breach of contract, negligence and fraud. He voluntarily dismissed that case in September 2017 and, using the saving statute, refiled it in 2018.
The second lawsuit was dismissed without prejudice by the trial court in August 2022, and Kohn filed his case a third time in January 2023. Glenmede argued he had already used the saving statute once and could not use it again, and the trial court dismissed the third case. The Eighth District Court of Appeals split the difference, examining each claim separately: it let the fraud, breach-of-contract and other claims proceed, but held the negligence claims time-barred because their limitations period had already expired before the second filing.
Writing for the majority, Justice Megan E. Shanahan said that claim-by-claim approach misreads both the statute and the court’s 2024 decision in McCullough v. Bennett, which rejected a “one-use” limit. In the opinion’s words, “Nothing in the saving statute provides that it may be used only once.” An “action,” the court explained, is the whole judicial proceeding, not each individual claim inside it, and the expiration of a limitations period before an earlier refiling does not block a later one when the statute’s terms are satisfied.
Chief Justice Sharon L. Kennedy and Justices R. Patrick DeWine, Jennifer Brunner, Joseph T. Deters and Daniel R. Hawkins joined Justice Shanahan’s opinion, while Justice Patrick F. Fischer concurred in judgment only. The court acknowledged concerns that repeated refilings could stretch cases out for years, but pointed to Civil Rule 41’s safeguards against abusive refilings.
The court affirmed the Eighth District’s decision allowing Kohn’s fraud, breach-of-contract and other claims to proceed, reversed its decision upholding the dismissal of his negligence claims, and sent the case back to the Cuyahoga County trial court. The ruling, Kohn v. Glenmede Trust Co., N.A., Slip Opinion No. 2026-Ohio-4001, settles the rule for every Ohio court: a refiled case rises or falls as one action, and refilings are not capped — so long as each new filing is timely and the previous case ended other than on the merits.