## Facts

- Steven T. Schmitz played football for the University of Notre Dame from 1974–1978, when Notre Dame was an NCAA member.
- The complaint alleged Schmitz sustained repetitive concussive and subconcussive head impacts during his college football career and was encouraged to tackle and block using his helmeted head.
- Schmitz alleged he was not examined for concussions and was not warned about long-term risks of repeated head impacts.
- Decades later, Schmitz developed cognitive decline and, in December 2012, was diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
- By 2014, he had also been diagnosed with severe memory loss, cognitive decline, Alzheimer’s disease, and dementia, which he attributed to the earlier head impacts.
- In October 2014, Schmitz and his wife sued the NCAA and Notre Dame, asserting (among other theories) negligence, constructive fraud, and fraudulent concealment based on alleged failures to warn, educate, and protect him from long-term dangers.
- Schmitz died in February 2015; his estate was substituted as a plaintiff.
- The trial court dismissed under Civ.R. 12(B)(6) as time-barred; the court of appeals reinstated the negligence and fraud-based claims; the Ohio Supreme Court accepted review on accrual and limitations issues.

## Issues

1. Whether the negligence, constructive fraud, and fraudulent concealment claims were conclusively time-barred on the face of the complaint under the two-year limitations period for bodily injury.
2. Whether the fraud-based claims were governed by the four-year fraud limitations period or the two-year bodily-injury limitations period.

## Decision

- The Ohio Supreme Court affirmed the appellate judgment reversing dismissal of the negligence, constructive fraud, and fraudulent concealment claims.
- The court held that, applying the latent-injury discovery rule and Civ.R. 12(B)(6) standards, the complaint did not conclusively establish that the claims accrued more than two years before the October 2014 filing.
- The court held the fraud-based claims were subject to the same two-year bodily-injury limitations period as negligence because the claims’ gravamen was recovery for bodily injury.

## Legal Principles

- Under Ohio’s latent-injury discovery rule, a claim accrues when the plaintiff is informed by competent medical authority of the injury or when the plaintiff, through reasonable diligence, should have discovered the injury, whichever occurs first.
- On a Civ.R. 12(B)(6) motion, a statute-of-limitations dismissal is proper only when the complaint shows on its face that the claim is time-barred; factual allegations are accepted as true and reasonable inferences are drawn for the plaintiff.
- Claims seeking damages for bodily injury are governed by Ohio Rev. Code § 2305.10(A)’s two-year limitations period even when pleaded as constructive fraud or fraudulent concealment, if the substance of the claim is personal injury.

## Conclusion

The court allowed the negligence and fraud-based claims to proceed past the pleading stage because the complaint plausibly supported accrual upon the 2012 CTE diagnosis under the discovery rule, while clarifying that all theories seeking recovery for the alleged brain injury are governed by the same two-year bodily-injury statute of limitations.


Schmitz v. National Collegiate Athletic Ass'n, 155 Ohio St. 3d 389, 122 N.E.3d 80 (Ohio 2018)