Fact-Checked: Why Trust Rittgers Rittgers & Nakajima If you practice medical malpractice in Ohio, you have likely operated under a long-standing assumption: wrongful death medical malpractice claims carry a two-year statute of limitations.
That assumption is no longer safe.
The Traditional Framework: Two Separate Statutes of Limitations
Under Ohio law, wrongful death and medical malpractice have historically been treated as distinct causes of action with different limitations periods.
- Wrongful Death is a statutory claim that belongs to the beneficiaries (not the decedent) and has traditionally been governed by the two-year statute of limitations in R.C. 2125.02.
- Medical Malpractice claims are governed by R.C. 2305.113, which generally provides a one-year statute of limitations from the date of negligence.
For decades, courts treated these as separate time limitations.
Pre-Everhart
Two Ohio Supreme Court decisions cemented that distinction:
- Klema v. St. Elizabeth’s Hosp., 170 Ohio St. 519 (1960)
- Koler v. St. Joseph Hosp., 69 Ohio St.2d 477 (1982)
In both cases, the Court refused to apply the medical malpractice statute of limitations to wrongful death claims because wrongful death actions had their own two-year statutory period.
In practical terms, Klema and Koler shut down any argument that a wrongful death claim arising from medical negligence was subject to a one-year limitation. Plaintiff lawyers could rely on that distinction with confidence.
The Shift: Everhart v. Coshocton County Memorial Hospital
The landscape changed with the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision in Everhart v. Coshocton Cty. Memorial Hosp., 2023-Ohio-4670.
In that case, the Court stated that its prior holdings in Klema and Koler regarding the medical malpractice statute of limitations are “no longer good law” because the General Assembly amended the medical malpractice statute after those cases were decided.
The Court further noted: “Medical claims now have their own one-year statute of limitations under R.C. 2305.113(A), and this Court has never considered whether that statute applies to wrongful-death claims based on medical care. Klema and Koler are not instructive.”
This language is significant.
While the Court did not definitively hold that wrongful death medical malpractice claims are subject to a one-year statute, it clearly opened the door to that argument and arguably removed the strongest precedential barrier against it.
Why This Matters for Plaintiff Lawyers
Medical malpractice cases are already deadline-intensive and investigation-heavy:
- Medical records and billing collection can take months.
- Experts must be retained early to support an Affidavit of Merit.
- Causation analysis is complex and document-driven.
- Estates must be opened in probate before filing.
- The statute of repose remains in play.
Layer onto that the possibility that a wrongful death claim may now be argued to carry only a one-year statute of limitations, and the timeline becomes dramatically compressed.
Instead of two years from death, you may effectively have:
- One year to investigate,
- One year to retain and vet experts,
- One year to complete medical review,
- One year to open the estate and prepare the complaint.
That is a fundamental shift in how Plaintiff’s lawyers work up medical malpractice wrongful death claims.
The Bottom Line
The decision in Everhart is essentially a warning. Now, if you file a medical malpractice wrongful death claim more than one year from the date of death, you may now expect a potential motion to dismiss or summary judgment arguing the one-year medical claim statute of limitations applies.
The prudent course of action is to file the wrongful death medical malpractice claim within one-year of death to avoid the unnecessary statute of limitations challenges to protect the claims.