In 2020, Thomas Weidman, a township trustee in Warren County, found out he was the target of a state auditor’s investigation accusing him of soliciting bribes. The “smoking gun” was an email allegedly written by him 10 years earlier that resurfaced. The email was a fake, and Weidman sued the author for libel.
The case was dismissed after the trial court found the statute of limitations to sue for libel in Ohio ends one year after the false statement is published.
Weidman appealed, arguing it’s unfair to cut off the time to sue before he learned of the email. The appellate court likened it to a patient who discovers a medical device left in them, saying a disparaged person ought to have one year to sue from the time the secret lie is revealed.
The “discovery of the injury” theory applied by the Twelfth District Court of Appeals in Weidman’s case conflicts with rulings from many other state appeals courts, which have found that the one-year-from-publication deadline is a hard and fast rule. The Supreme Court of Ohio will hear oral arguments next week on whether the time to sue can be extended when a false statement was “secretive, concealed, or otherwise unknowable.”
Land Deal Dispute Reveals Email
In 2011, Cincinnati real estate developer Christopher Hildebrant was brokering a property sale in Sycamore Township in Warren County. Hildebrant alleges that on several occasions, Weidman, a trustee, threatened to block approval of Hildebrant’s projects unless Weidman was paid a...
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