New Riegel Local School Dist. Bd. of Edn. v. Buehrer Group Architecture & Eng., Inc. (Slip Opinion), 133 N.E.3d 482

Background

New Riegel Local School District sued design and construction firms and a surety alleging defects (moisture, condensation, etc.) in a school substantially completed and occupied in December 2002.
New Riegel asserted breach-of-contract, breach-of-express-warranty, and surety- bond claims; plaintiffs served notices in January 2015 and sued in April 2015.
Defendants moved for judgment on the pleadings, asserting R.C. 2305.131 (Ohio’s construction statute of repose) barred the claims because more than ten years had elapsed after substantial completion.
Trial court granted defendants’ motions and dismissed New Riegel’s breach-of-contract claims as time-barred.
The Third District reversed, relying on this court’s Kocisko decision holding the (earlier) statute of repose applied only to tort claims.
Ohio Supreme Court granted review to decide whether the current R.C. 2305.131 applies to contract actions as well as torts and whether stare decisis compelled following Kocisko.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the current R.C. 2305.131 applies to contract claims as well as tort claims	New Riegel: statute should be read to apply only to torts; applying it to contract claims would be impotent because contract claims accrue earlier	Appellants: the statute’s language and uncodified legislative statements show it applies to any cause of action meeting its terms, including contract claims	Held: R.C. 2305.131 applies to causes of action in tort or contract that seek damages for bodily injury, injury to real/personal property, or wrongful death arising from a defective/unsafe improvement to real property
Whether stare decisis (Kocisko) requires treating the current statute as limited to torts	New Riegel: Kocisko controls because wording is substantially similar	Appellants: the statute was materially revised since Kocisko (multiple subdivisions, exceptions, remedial instruction), so stare decisis need not apply	Held: Stare decisis did not bar a fresh construction; the 2004 statute differs sufficiently from the 1971 version addressed in Kocisko
Whether the Court should decide if R.C. 2305.131 actually bars New Riegel’s claims on these facts (i.e., accrued-within-repose argument)	New Riegel: even if statute applies to contract claims, accrued-contract claims that vested within the ten-year period should not be barred	Appellants: statute of repose extinguishes liability after the repose period regardless of accrual	Held: Court declined to resolve whether R.C. 2305.131 bars these particular claims on the facts; remanded for the court of appeals to address remaining arguments
Whether statutory text and structure support inclusion of contract claims	New Riegel: statute’s injury-language is traditionally tort-focused; contract claims seek economic loss and are governed by separate limitation statutes	Appellants: statute references "notwithstanding other limitations" and defines "substantial completion" (a contract concept); it also carves out express-warranty (a contract concept), showing contract coverage	Held: Reading the statute as a whole supports application to contract claims; the express-warranty exception confirms the General Assembly contemplated contract concepts

Key Cases Cited

Kocisko v. Charles Shutrump & Sons Co., 21 Ohio St.3d 98 (1986) (earlier Ohio decision construing construction statute of repose to apply only to tort claims)
Brennaman v. R.M.I. Co., 70 Ohio St.3d 460 (1994) (held the 1971 repose statute violated the Ohio Constitution where injury occurred after repose)
Oaktree Condominium Assn., Inc. v. Hallmark Bldg. Co., 139 Ohio St.3d 264 (2014) (recognized R.C. 2305.131 as a statutory bar that can apply to accrued claims commenced after the statute’s effective date)
CTS Corp. v. Waldburger, 573 U.S. 1 (2014) (U.S. Supreme Court description of statutes of repose as absolute cutoff on right to sue)