Statute of Limitations

A statute of limitations is the amount of time, after the claim for relief against the Defendant has been discovered or should have been discovered by the Plaintiff, in which the case must be brought against the Defendant. Ohio's Lemon Law requires that the action must be brought against the manufacturer within 5 years of the date that the nonconformity was discovered or should have been discovered. In calculating this time period, and time spent before an arbitration panel is excluded.

Requirement of Informal Dispute Resolution Mechanism

Before you can sue a vehicle manufacturer under the Lemon Law, you must first check with the state Attorney General's Office to see whether that company has registered in Ohio with a dispute resolution mechanism panel as provided in R.C. 1345.77. If the manufacturer has not qualified with the Attorney General on this issue, or has failed to give the consumer the appropriate notice about the panel it is qualified with, then the consumer can go straight to a lawsuit. But any major manufacturer of new vehicles is usually qualified before a panel.

It is possible that the manufacturer may have an arbitration panel which is not approved by the Attorney General of the State of Ohio. If this is the case, you can go through this procedure if you want, but it is not necessary to do so before filing suit.

This means that the consumer must first contact the panel and fill out their paperwork for the purposes of holding an arbitration. Many of the hearings are conducted upon the paperwork submitted, rather than actually holding a hearing and taking testimony. You can typically expect to have a decision from your panel in 60 to 90 days after your claim is submitted, so you aren't looking at a huge delay. On the panel will be a consumer advocate, a neutral party, and someone from the car industry. They will hear your complaints, and if they decide in your favor, then you get a replacement vehicle of your choice or all of your money back. If the panel decides in your favor, its all over, and the manufacturer has nowhere to go, nowhere to appeal.

But if you don't like the decision that the panel comes to, then you can still sue in court on the issue, and the decision of the panel will in no way stop you from proving your case later on if you can to a court. So it's not a bad thing to go through the panel arbitration process. You can't lose the case there, and the defenses that the manufacturer uses in the panel hearing will give you a good preview to the arguments that you will be facing in court.