Title: Longbottom v. Mercy Hosp. Clermont

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as 
Longbottom v. Mercy Hosp. Clermont, Slip Opinion No. 2013-Ohio-4068.] 
 
 
NOTICE 
This slip opinion is subject to formal revision before it is published in 
an advance sheet of the Ohio Official Reports.  Readers are requested 
to promptly notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of Ohio, 
65 South Front Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215, of any typographical or 
other formal errors in the opinion, in order that corrections may be 
made before the opinion is published. 
 
SLIP OPINION NO. 2013-OHIO-4068 
LONGBOTTOM ET AL., APPELLEES, v. MERCY HOSPITAL CLERMONT;  
HUBER ET AL., APPELLANTS. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets,  
it may be cited as Longbottom v. Mercy Hosp. Clermont,  
Slip Opinion No. 2013-Ohio-4068.] 
Prejudgment interest—R.C. 1343.03—Retroactivity. 
(No. 2012-1260—Submitted May 8, 2013—Decided September 24, 2013.) 
CERTIFIED by the Court of Appeals for Clermont County, 
Nos. CA2011-01-005 and CA2011-01-006, 2012-Ohio-2148. 
____________________ 
O’DONNELL, J. 
{¶ 1} The appellate court certified that its decision in this case conflicts 
with Barnes v. Univ. Hosps. of Cleveland, 8th Dist. Cuyahoga Nos. 87247, 87285, 
87710, 87903, and 87946, 2006-Ohio-6266, on the following question: 
“ ‘Whether the version of the prejudgment interest statute, R.C. 1343.03(C), as 
amended effective June 2, 2004, can be applied retroactively to claims accruing 
before June 2, 2004?’ ”  We agreed to review this matter. 
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{¶ 2} The General Assembly amended R.C. 1343.03(C) on June 2, 2004, 
to preclude the award of prejudgment interest on future damages.  It did not, 
however, preclude the right to collect prejudgment interest on other damage 
awards.  Thus, we answer the certified question in the affirmative, because the 
statute does not eliminate a right or a remedy, and it applies to causes of action 
accruing before but commenced on or after June 2, 2004. 
Facts and Procedural History 
{¶ 3} On March 22, 2002, nine-year-old Kyle Smith struck his head on a 
coffee table at the home of a family friend in Hamersville, Ohio.  His father, Jesse 
Smith, heard a thud from the next room, and Kyle came to him crying and 
bleeding from his ear.  Smith decided to take his son to the emergency room and 
en route stopped home so Kyle’s mother, Kristi Longbottom, could go with them.  
While there, Kyle began to vomit and continued to complain that his head hurt. 
{¶ 4} At Mercy Clermont Hospital, Dr. Gary Huber initially examined 
Kyle but left the examination room.  At that point, Kyle again vomited and began 
to complain of pain in his jaw.  Huber returned to the room, stitched Kyle’s ear, 
and explained that he did not believe that Kyle had suffered a serious head injury 
because the child did not lose consciousness or hearing, behaved normally, and 
had no significant pressure in his head.  Huber did not order a CT scan and 
discharged Kyle with a pamphlet on head trauma.  According to Kyle’s parents, 
Huber told them to take him home and let him sleep but never advised them to 
check on their son during the night. 
{¶ 5} Early the next morning, Kyle began gasping for breath, and 
Longbottom saw that he had again vomited while sleeping.  Smith called 9-1-1, 
and an air ambulance transported Kyle to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, where 
doctors diagnosed an epidural hematoma.  His fall had torn his middle meningeal 
artery, causing pressure on his brain, a midline shift, and herniation.  Dr. Kerry R. 
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Crone performed emergency surgery; Kyle survived, but he sustained serious and 
permanent injuries. 
{¶ 6} On March 14, 2003, Longbottom and Smith, individually and on 
behalf of Kyle, sued Huber and Qualified Emergency Specialists, Inc., for 
malpractice.  Prior to trial, however, they voluntarily filed a notice of dismissal 
pursuant to Civ.R. 41(A). 
{¶ 7} They refiled the action on March 3, 2008, and eventually added 
Kyle as a party when he turned 18, and this case proceeded to trial.  A jury found 
that Huber had negligently failed to “instruct the parents about the possibility of 
significant head injury or how to observe and monitor Kyle for such injuries,” and 
it awarded $2,412,899 in damages, $1,616,899 of which represented future 
damages for Kyle’s anticipated medical expenses, pain and suffering, loss of 
ability to perform usual functions, and loss of future earning capacity.  The court 
ordered a $500,000 set-off as a result of a prior settlement with Mercy Clermont 
Hospital and also denied Huber’s motions for judgment notwithstanding the 
verdict and for a new trial. 
{¶ 8} The trial court also awarded prejudgment interest in the amount of 
$830,774.66, which included prejudgment interest on the portion of the award 
representing future damages, after finding that Huber had failed to make a good-
faith settlement attempt prior to trial.  In calculating prejudgment interest, the 
court applied the version of R.C. 1343.03(C) that existed at the time of the filing 
of the initial complaint, and it found that the subsequent amendments to this 
statute applied prospectively only.  The court ordered prejudgment interest from 
the date the cause of action arose until the date of the voluntary dismissal and 
from the date of the refiling of the complaint until the date on which the judgment 
was paid. 
{¶ 9} Both parties appealed.  The Twelfth District Court of Appeals 
affirmed the judgment and the award of prejudgment interest, and in accord with 
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decisions of the First, Third, and Seventh Appellate Districts, held that the 
amendments to R.C. 1343.03(C) applied prospectively only.  However, the 
appellate court did reverse the trial court’s decision to suspend the accrual of 
prejudgment interest from the date of the voluntary dismissal to the refiling of the 
complaint, concluding that the trial court lacked discretion to adjust the period 
during which prejudgment interest accrued. 
{¶ 10} The court of appeals further certified the conflict question to this 
court, and after determining that a conflict existed, we agreed to hear the matter. 
{¶ 11} On appeal to this court, Huber urges that R.C. 1343.03(C), as 
amended, applies to all actions pending on or after June 2, 2004, the effective date 
of the amendments, and thus prejudgment interest is not available for the award of 
future damages in this case.  He notes that in Maynard v. Eaton Corp., 119 Ohio 
St.3d 443, 2008-Ohio-4542, 895 N.E.2d 145, this court applied the 2004 
amendment to R.C. 1343.03(A) adjusting the rate of postjudgment interest to 
cases in which judgment has not yet been paid if the case was pending on appeal.  
He maintains that applying the current version of R.C. 1343.03(C) retroactively 
does not affect any vested right to prejudgment interest, because as of the 
effective date of the amendments, the requirements for seeking prejudgment 
interest had not been met and therefore no claim could be pursued.  Further, he 
asserts that the amended statute is not a substantive law, because it only 
substitutes a new remedy for the enforcement of an existing right.  And he 
contends that the second complaint filed after the effective date of the statute is 
the only pleading upon which prejudgment interest could be awarded. 
{¶ 12} Longbottom and Smith contend that because Huber never argued 
that the voluntary dismissal of the initial complaint affected accrual of 
prejudgment interest, he has forfeited that argument.  And they argue that R.C. 
1343.03(C) contains no language showing that the General Assembly intended it 
to apply retroactively to causes of action that had accrued prior to its effective 
January Term, 2013 
5 
 
date.  Finally, they contend that as applied in this case, the amendment would be 
unconstitutional if applied retroactively, because the 2004 amendment to R.C. 
1343.03(C) changed the accrual date for prejudgment interest, eliminated a vested 
right to it on the award of future damages, and imposed new statutory duties on a 
claimant by conditioning prejudgment interest on filing a pleading and giving 
written notice to the tortfeasor’s insurer—requirements imposed more than two 
years after the right to prejudgment interest had accrued. 
{¶ 13} Accordingly, we are asked to decide whether the amended version 
of R.C. 1343.03(C) applies to the award of prejudgment interest on a claim that 
had accrued prior to the effective date of the statute. 
Law and Analysis 
{¶ 14} Ohio courts allowed prejudgment interest on damage awards at 
common law, Hogg v. Zanesville Canal & Mfg. Co., 5 Ohio 410, 424 (1832), but 
in 1982 the General Assembly codified the common law rule and enacted R.C. 
1343.03(C), the prejudgment interest statute, “ ‘to promote settlement efforts, to 
prevent parties who have engaged in tortious conduct from frivolously delaying 
the ultimate resolution of cases, and to encourage good faith efforts to settle 
controversies outside a trial setting.’ ”  Moskovitz v. Mt. Sinai Med. Ctr., 69 Ohio 
St.3d 638, 657-658, 635 N.E.2d 331 (1994), quoting Kalain v. Smith, 25 Ohio 
St.3d 157, 159, 495 N.E.2d 572 (1986). 
{¶ 15} When originally enacted, R.C. 1343.03(C) provided: 
 
Interest on a judgment, decree, or order for the payment of 
money rendered in a civil action based on tortious conduct and not 
settled by agreement of the parties, shall be computed from the 
date the cause of action accrued to the date on which the money is 
paid, if, upon motion of any party to the action, the court 
determines at a hearing held subsequent to the verdict or decision 
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in the action that the party required to pay the money failed to 
make a good faith effort to settle the case and that the party to 
whom the money is to be paid did not fail to make a good faith 
effort to settle the case. 
 
Am.Sub.H.B. No. 189, 139 Ohio Laws, Part I, 2034, 2035. 
{¶ 16} In Huffman v. Hair Surgeon, Inc., 19 Ohio St.3d 83, 482 N.E.2d 
1248 (1985), we considered whether the original version of R.C. 1343.03(C) 
applied when the cause of action had accrued prior to the enactment of the statute.  
We observed that former R.C. 1343.03(C) “is remedial in nature to the extent it 
provides procedures to remedy wrongs and abuses,” id. at 88, fn. 7; however, we 
also recognized that “[t]his statute not only provides the method by which the 
interest shall be computed, it also creates the right to have the unliquidated claim 
made subject to interest if the reasons for the assessment as stated in the statute 
can be met,” id.  Distinguishing in this way the substantive right to prejudgment 
interest from the statute’s procedures to remedy such misconduct, we concluded 
that former R.C. 1343.03(C) created a new “substantive benefit,” and therefore 
“[a losing party’s] lack of good faith occurring prior to the effective date of the 
statute cannot be constitutionally penalized. Section 28, Article II of the Ohio 
Constitution.”  Huffman at 88, fn. 7.  We therefore decided that “interest could not 
be awarded for the period prior to the effective date of the statute,” id. at 87, but 
that “it is appropriate to allow interest to be calculated from the effective date of 
the statute until ‘the money is paid,’ ” id. at 88, fn. 7. 
Amendment to R.C. 1343.03(C) 
{¶ 17} Effective June 2, 2004, the legislature amended R.C. 1343.03(C), 
Sub.H.B. No. 212 (“H.B. 212”), 150 Ohio Laws, Part III, 3417, 3418-3419.  The 
amended statute allows a claimant to receive prejudgment interest from the date 
the cause of action accrues only when the party required to pay the money has 
January Term, 2013 
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admitted liability or when that party engaged in conduct resulting in liability with 
the deliberate purpose of causing harm to the party to whom the money is to be 
paid.  In addition, R.C. 1343.03(C)(1)(c) specifies that for actions other than those 
in which the party has admitted liability or engaged in conduct resulting in 
liability with the deliberate purpose of causing harm to the party to whom the 
money is to be paid, prejudgment interest accrues for the longer of the following 
periods:  
 
(i) From the date on which the party to whom the money is 
to be paid gave the first notice described in division (C)(1)(c)(i) of 
this section to the date on which the judgment, order, or decree was 
rendered.  The period described in division (C)(1)(c)(i) of this 
section shall apply only if the party to whom the money is to be 
paid made a reasonable attempt to determine if the party required 
to pay had insurance coverage for liability for the tortious conduct 
and gave to the party required to pay and to any identified insurer, 
as nearly simultaneously as practicable, written notice in person or 
by certified mail that the cause of action had accrued. 
(ii) From the date on which the party to whom the money is 
to be paid filed the pleading on which the judgment, decree, or 
order was based to the date on which the judgment, decree, or 
order was rendered. 
 
And R.C. 1343.03(C)(2) states, “No court shall award interest under division 
(C)(1) of this section on future damages, as defined in section 2323.56 of the 
Revised Code, that are found by the trier of fact.” 
{¶ 18} H.B. 212 further amended R.C. 1343.03(A), changing the statutory 
rate of interest on judgments from a fixed rate of ten percent to a variable rate tied 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
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to the federal short-term rate.  In Maynard, 119 Ohio St.3d 443, 2008-Ohio-4542, 
895 N.E.2d 145, we considered whether this amendment applied to judgments 
entered before the effective date of H.B. 212 but still pending on appeal after that 
date.  Notably, uncodified language in H.B. 212 addressed pending litigation and 
provided: 
 
In the calculation of interest due under section 1343.03 of the 
Revised Code, in actions pending on the effective date of this act, 
the interest rate provided for in section 1343.03 of the Revised 
Code prior to the amendment of that section by this act shall apply 
up to the effective date of this act, and the interest rate provided for 
in section 1343.03 of the Revised Code as amended by this act 
shall apply on and after that effective date. 
 
(Emphasis added.)  Section 3, H.B. 212, 150 Ohio Laws, Part III, 3421. 
{¶ 19} Writing for a unanimous court in Maynard, Justice Cupp explained 
that the General Assembly intended the new statutory interest rate to apply in all 
pending actions and that a case remains pending while on appeal.  Accordingly, 
we held that “the amendment to R.C. 1343.03(A) applies to cases in which the 
trial court has entered final judgment prior to June 2, 2004, the effective date of 
the amendment, but the judgment is not yet paid in full and the case was pending 
on appeal as of that date.”  Maynard at ¶ 15. 
{¶ 20} Significantly, and in contrast to the imposition of a statutory 
interest rate established in R.C. 1343.03(A), H.B. 212 contains no codified or 
uncodified language providing that the modified procedures for calculating 
prejudgment interest enacted by R.C. 1343.03(C) should apply to all pending 
cases.  The legislature could have chosen to make these new procedures apply in 
all cases pending on or after the effective date of H.B. 212, as it did with the 
January Term, 2013 
9 
 
changes made to R.C. 1343.03(A), but it chose not to do so.  We therefore 
conclude that the legislature intended that the amendments to R.C. 1343.03(C) 
should apply only to cases filed on or after June 2, 2004, the effective date of that 
statute. 
The Retroactivity Clause 
{¶ 21} As we explained in Smith v. Smith, 109 Ohio St.3d 285, 2006-
Ohio-2419, 847 N.E.2d 414, the Retroactivity Clause contained in Article II, 
Section 28, Ohio Constitution, “ ‘prohibits the General Assembly from passing 
retroactive laws and protects vested rights from new legislative encroachments,’ ”  
and it “ ‘nullifies those new laws that ‘reach back and create new burdens, new 
duties, new obligations, or new liabilities not existing at the time [the statute 
becomes effective].”  (Bracketed material sic.)’ ”  Id. at ¶ 6, quoting Bielat v. 
Bielat, 87 Ohio St.3d 350, 352–353, 721 N.E.2d 28 (2000), quoting Miller v. 
Hixson, 64 Ohio St. 39, 51, 59 N.E. 749 (1901). 
{¶ 22} Determining whether a law violates the Retroactivity Clause 
involves a two-step test: 
 
[W]e must first “determine whether the General Assembly 
expressly intended the statute to apply retroactively.”  [Bielat, 87 
Ohio St.3d] at 353, 721 N.E.2d 28.  If so, we must determine 
whether “the statute is substantive, rendering it unconstitutionally 
retroactive, as opposed to merely remedial.” (Emphasis sic.)  Id.  A 
substantive statute is one that “impairs vested rights, affects an 
accrued substantive right, or imposes new or additional burdens, 
duties, obligations, or liabilities as to a past transaction.”  Id. at 
354, 721 N.E.2d 28; Van Fossen v. Babcock & Wilcox Co. (1988), 
36 Ohio St.3d 100, 106–107, 522 N.E.2d 489. 
 
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Id.  Thus, a statute that applies retroactively and that is substantive violates 
Article II, Section 28, Ohio Constitution.  Id. 
{¶ 23} Pursuant to R.C. 1.48, “[a] statute is presumed to be prospective in 
its operation unless expressly made retrospective.”  And in Estate of Johnson v. 
Randall Smith, Inc., 135 Ohio St.3d 440, 2013-Ohio-1507, 989 N.E.2d 35, we 
stated that “ ‘[l]aws of a remedial nature providing rules of practice, courses of 
procedure, or methods of review are applicable to any proceedings conducted 
after the adoption of such laws.’ ”  Id. at ¶ 20, quoting Kilbreath v. Rudy, 16 Ohio 
St.2d 70, 242 N.E.2d 658 (1968), paragraph two of the syllabus.  Here, the 2004 
amendment to R.C. 1343.03(C) does not alter the established statutory right to 
prejudgment interest, but by changing the date from which interest accrues in 
some causes of action and by precluding prejudgment interest on future damages, 
it alters the procedure for calculating prejudgment interest.  Because this 
amendment is not expressly made retrospective, R.C. 1343.03(C) applies 
prospectively from the date of enactment. 
{¶ 24} Generally, our determination that the statute applies prospectively 
would end the inquiry required by Van Fossen.  However, a statute that applies 
prospectively may nonetheless implicate the Retroactivity Clause.  As we noted in 
Tobacco Use Prevention & Control Found. Bd. of Trustees v. Boyce, 127 Ohio 
St.3d 511, 2010-Ohio-6207, 941 N.E.2d 745,  
 
the constitutional limitation against retroactive laws “ ‘include[s] a 
prohibition against laws which commenced on the date of 
enactment and which operated in futuro, but which, in doing so, 
divested rights, particularly property rights, which had been vested 
anterior to the time of enactment of the laws.’ ” [Van Fossen,] 36 
Ohio St.3d at 105, 522 N.E.2d 489, quoting Smead, The Rule 
January Term, 2013 
11 
 
Against 
Retroactive 
Legislation: 
A 
Basic 
Principle 
of 
Jurisprudence (1936), 20 Minn.L.Rev. 775, 781–782. 
 
(Emphasis added.)  Id. at ¶ 14. 
{¶ 25} Although the Retroactivity Clause bars statutes that extinguish 
preexisting legal rights, id., it does not prohibit legislation that “merely affect[s] 
‘the methods and procedure by which rights are recognized, protected and 
enforced, [and] not * * * the rights themselves.’  (Emphasis added.)”  Bielat, 87 
Ohio St.3d at 354, 721 N.E.2d 28, quoting Weil v. Taxicabs of Cincinnati, Inc., 
139 Ohio St. 198, 205, 39 N.E.2d 148 (1942).  And as we observed in Morgan v. 
W. Elec. Co., Inc., 69 Ohio St.2d 278, 432 N.E.2d 157 (1982), 
 
“ ‘The legislature has complete control over the remedies 
afforded to parties in the courts of Ohio, and it is a fundamental 
principle of law that an individual may not acquire a vested right in 
a remedy or any part of it, that is, there is no right in a particular 
remedy. * * * A party has no vested right in the forms of 
administering justice that precludes the Legislature from altering or 
modifying them and better adapting them to effect their end and 
objects.’ ”  
 
Id. at 281, fn. 5, quoting State ex rel. Michaels v. Morse, 165 Ohio St. 599, 605-
606, 138 N.E.2d 660 (1956), quoting State ex rel. Michaels v. Morse, 10th Dist. 
Franklin No. 5372, 8 (Feb. 7, 1956). 
{¶ 26} The 2004 amendment to R.C. 1343.03(C) neither destroys nor 
eliminates the right to prejudgment interest nor relieves a party of the duty to 
make a good faith effort to settle a claim; rather, the amended statute affects only 
the method by which prejudgment interest is calculated.  For this reason, Huffman 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
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is distinguishable on its facts, because in that case, this court considered whether a 
new substantive right to prejudgment interest could be applied retroactively to 
misconduct occurring before the effective date of the statute.  In contrast, this case 
concerns only a change in the method of calculating the preexisting substantive 
right to prejudgment interest.  Because the amended statute does not eliminate the 
right to prejudgment interest but only modifies the remedy available, it applies to 
causes of action accruing before but filed on or after June 2, 2004, the effective 
date of the statute. 
{¶ 27} We recognize that here the cause of action accrued before the 
legislature amended R.C. 1343.03(C) and that a complaint had been timely filed 
before the legislature amended the statute.  But Longbottom and Smith voluntarily 
dismissed that case and thereafter the legislature amended the prejudgment 
interest statute.  Thus, at the time of refiling, the law then in effect precluded 
recovery of prejudgment interest on future damages.  Because R.C. 1343.03(C) 
applies to causes of action accruing before but filed on or after June 2, 2004, it 
applies to the refiled complaint and governs the award of prejudgment interest in 
this case. 
Conclusion 
{¶ 28} R.C. 1343.03(C) applies to tort actions filed on or after June 2, 
2004, regardless of when the cause of action accrued.  The refiled complaint 
became subject to the amended prejudgment interest statute because it was filed 
after the legislation had gone into effect, and therefore the amended version of 
R.C. 1343.03(C) governs the award of prejudgment interest in this case.  
Accordingly, the judgment of the court of appeals is reversed, and the matter is 
remanded to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 
Judgment reversed 
and cause remanded. 
O’CONNOR, C.J., and LANZINGER, KENNEDY, and FRENCH, JJ., concur. 
January Term, 2013 
13 
 
PFEIFER and O’NEILL, JJ., dissent. 
____________________ 
PFEIFER, J., dissenting. 
{¶ 29} The majority opinion requires the parents of Kyle Smith to have 
known in 2002 what the General Assembly would enact in 2004.  Only if Kyle’s 
parents were gifted with such prescience could they have known that they should 
have sent notice—pursuant to a version of R.C. 1343.03 that did not yet exist—to 
the tortfeasors and their insurers that a cause of action had accrued.  Only with 
that foreknowledge could Kyle Smith’s parents have known what to do to fully 
protect their son’s future, to know that the prejudgment-interest clock could start 
running only if they complied with a statute that was not yet a statute. 
{¶ 30} Instead, they relied on the statute that existed at the time Kyle was 
injured.  They relied on a statute that stated that prejudgment interest would be 
calculated from the date that the cause of action accrued, a statute that did not 
require notice to insurers and tortfeasors that a cause of action had accrued.  That 
additional burden required by R.C. 1343.03(C)(1)(c)(i) makes its application in 
this case unconstitutionally retroactive.  This court has held that the Retroactivity 
Clause  “ ‘nullifies those new laws that “reach back and create new burdens, new 
duties, new obligations, or new liabilities not existing at the time [the statute 
becomes effective].”  Miller v. Hixson (1901), 64 Ohio St. 39, 51, 59 N.E. 749, 
752.’  Bielat [v. Bielat], 87 Ohio St.3d [350,] 352–353, 721 N.E.2d 28 [(1999)].”  
Tobacco Use Prevention & Control Found. Bd. of Trustees v. Boyce, 127 Ohio 
St.3d 511, 2010-Ohio-6207, 941 N.E.2d 745, ¶ 14. 
{¶ 31} Moreover, the version of R.C. 1343.03 in place at the time Kyle 
was injured recognized that prejudgment interest could be awarded on future 
damages.  That fact is something the majority opinion skims over when it states 
that “this case concerns only a change in the method of calculating the preexisting 
substantive right to prejudgment interest.”  Majority opinion at ¶ 26.  No—R.C. 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
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1343.03(C)(2) eliminates the preexisting substantive right to interest on future 
damages.  That right to the “substantive benefit” of prejudgment interest on future 
damages was created by former R.C. 1343.03(C).  Huffman v. Hair Surgeon, Inc., 
19 Ohio St.3d 83, 88, 482 N.E.2d 1248 (1985), fn. 7.  A statute that takes away a 
substantive right is not remedial. 
{¶ 32} Finally, the majority admits that the 2004 amendment to R.C. 
1343.03(C) was not expressly made retrospective.  This court should not read into 
the statute a retroactive application to causes of action that accrued before its 
enactment.  We have no reason to contemplate that the General Assembly 
intended the unjust and inequitable interpretation this court imposes on Kyle 
Smith and his family in this case.  Only this court can take credit for that. 
O’NEILL, J., concurs in the foregoing opinion. 
____________________ 
The Lawrence Firm, P.S.C., Jennifer L. Lawrence, and Richard D. Lawrence; 
Ginger S. Bock Law Office, Inc., and Ginger S. Bock, for appellees. 
 
Reminger Co., L.P.A., Martin T. Galvin, Stephen E. Walters, and Clifford 
C. Masch; Lindhorst & Dreidame Co., L.P.A., Michael F. Lyon, and Bradley D. 
McPeek, for appellants. 
________________________