Ohio Tolling Statute
R.C. 2305.15, commonly referred to as “the tolling statute,” states that if a person who is subject to a lawsuit leaves the State, the statutory periods for commencing that lawsuit do not begin to run—that is, those statutory periods are
tolled—while the person remains out of the State. See R.C. 2305.15(A). A physician who moved out of Ohio after the death of a patient that was the basis of an Ohio medical malpractice lawsuit argued that the Ohio tolling statute violated the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution (U.S. Const., art. I, § 8, cl. 3).
The Ohio Supreme Court stated in its November 27, 2024 Opinion: “we find that R.C. 2305.15(A) is not facially discriminatory. We also find that neither the history nor the practical effects of the law evince an economically protectionist purpose … the underpinnings of R.C. 2305.15(A) are wholly innocuous. Nothing in the history of the tolling statute suggests that its enactment was motivated by a desire to undertake state economic protectionism; rather, “Ohio passed the law to address a quaint problem—that plaintiffs at one point in American legal history had no authority to pull out-of-state individuals or entities into the jurisdiction to defend a lawsuit.””
“The primary practical effect of R.C. 2305.15(A) is to toll the statutory periods for commencing a lawsuit while a defendant is not present in the State. Although the tolling statute may no longer be as necessary as it was a century ago since personal jurisdiction is no longer tied to a defendant’s physical presence within the State, the law nevertheless serves a legitimate local purpose: It stops the running of the statutory periods for commencing a lawsuit when a defendant is out of the State and potentially difficult to locate. See Garber at 846. The tolling statute applies with equal force to both residents and nonresidents of Ohio. See Johnson, 2000-Ohio-235. And nothing about R.C. 2305.15(A) directly regulates or touches on trade or business or any of the instrumentalities thereof—i.e., things traditionally associated with commerce. Thus, if R.C. 2305.15(A) can be said to have any practical effects on interstate commerce, those effects are incidental in nature, and are, at any rate, entirely dependent on the factual circumstances of each case.”
The Ohio Supreme Court concluded: “We hold that Ohio’s tolling statute, specifically R.C. 2305.15(A), does not violate the dormant Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution as applied to a physician who left Ohio to practice medicine in another state.”
Source Kennedy v. W. Res. Senior Care, Slip Opinion No. 2024-Ohio-5565.
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