By Steven A. Keslar, Phillip T. KellyOn August 8, 2024, the Supreme Court of Ohio issued a monumental ruling applying the “discovery rule” to libel claims. Justice Donnelly, writing for the majority, held that “the discovery rule applies to claims of libel when the publication of the libelous statements was secretive, concealed, or otherwise inherently unknowable to the plaintiff due to the nature of the publication.” Weidman v. Hildebrant, Slip Opinion No. 2024-Ohio-2931, ¶ 21.
Background
Back in 2011, the appellant created a fictitious email account using the appellee’s name and sent an email to himself, which portrays the appellee as engaging in potentially illegal conduct. The appellant then forwarded the email to a third-party, and the email remained private until November 18, 2020, when the appellee first learned of it through an interview with special investigators who had subpoenaed the email. After becoming aware of the potentially libelous email, the appellee filed suit against the appellant on February 17, 2021 for defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress (“IIED”), and false-light invasion of privacy.
At the trial court level, the appellant filed a motion for summary judgment arguing that the defamation claim, as well as the other derivative claims, were time-barred because the complaint was filed more than one year after the publication of the email, which was in 2011. The trial court agreed and granted the motion for summary stating that a cause of action for defamation accrues at the time the statement is first published to a third party. The appellant appealed to the decision to the Twelfth District Court of Appeals, which reversed the trial court’s decision holding that the discovery rule applies to defamation claims. The Supreme Court of Ohio certified a conflict on the issue and granted the appellant’s discretionary appeal.
The Statute of Limitation for Defamation Claims
The limitation period for bringing a defamation claim is statutorily enumerated. Under R.C. 2305.11(A), “[a]n action for libel . . . shall be commenced within one year after the cause of action accrued.” The question essentially posed to Supreme Court of Ohio in Weidman was—at what point does a cause of action for libel “accrue” within the meaning of the statute in circumstances when the libelous statement is secretive, concealed, or otherwise hidden from the plaintiff? The Supreme Court of Ohio addressed this question by applying the “discovery rule.”
Accrual and the “Discovery Rule”
The general rule is that a cause of action accrues at the time a wrongful act is committed. However, thediscovery rule has been applied in certain scenarios as an exception to the general rule. As the Supreme Court of Ohio explains, the discovery rule provides that “a cause of action does not arise until the plaintiff discovers, or by the exercise of reasonable diligence should have discovered, that he or she was injured by the wrongful conduct of the defendant.” Id. at ¶ 14.
The discovery rule has been applied in limited contexts to toll the statute of limitations, such as in asbestos claims, medical-malpractice claims, and some wrongful-death claims. In Weidman, for the first time, the Supreme Court of Ohio in its majority opinion extended the discovery rule to claims grounded in libel. As a result, libel claims based on secretive or concealed statements are actionable when the plaintiff first becomes aware of the statements.
Implications
The Weidman decision could have significant implications concerning libel law, especially for determining when a cause of action accrues. Now, parties and their respective counsel must look beyond the publication date and consider other factors such as the plaintiff’s knowledge of the statement as well as the secretive nature of the statement. Moreover, individuals must be wary that any concealed, secretive statements could be actionable well beyond one-year from the publication date. Although the Court’s majority opinion limits the application of the discovery rule to when publication of libelous statements was “secretive, concealed, or otherwise inherently unknowable to the plaintiff due to the nature of the publication,” the Court did not elaborate on the meaning of “secretive,” “concealed,” or “inherently unknowable” in this context, leaving it up to lower courts to craft the boundaries of the rule. Because the publication at issue in Weidman was a private email between two individuals, the door is potentially open for the discovery rule to apply to all types of electronic direct messages through email, text message, or social media.