Every figure below is the researched rule for Ohio, with its citation and a direct link to the official source so you can confirm it yourself. Covers statutory interest and when it starts accruing, how Actual Cash Value is determined and whether labor can be depreciated, whether a “no damages for delay” clause is enforceable and how long you have to file, the state-specific inputs behind a fully burdened labor rate and who can be held liable for a construction-site injury.
The rate itself and the date interest starts running, which differs by claim type in most states.
7% / year (2026, resets annually)
Formula: federal short-term rate (rounded to nearest whole number) plus 3%, certified annually by the Ohio Tax Commissioner.
Resets every January; re-check the current year's certified rate before use.
From when the money becomes due and payable under the written instrument, generally the breach date
ORC § 1343.03(A) allows interest on money due on an instrument of writing, or on a judgment, from the date the money became due and payable, which for a construction contract is generally the date payment was owed or the date of breach.
Conditional: only after a post-verdict court finding, then from either the date of loss or a notice date depending on the defendant's conduct
ORC § 1343.03(C) lets a party move, after a verdict or decision, for prejudgment interest on a tort/property-damage award. The court must first find the party required to pay did not make a good-faith effort to settle. If granted, interest generally runs from the date the cause of action accrued (essentially the date of loss) when the party at fault acted with the intent to cause harm, or otherwise from a notice/filing-related date set out in the statute. This mechanism is conditional and fact-dependent, not an automatic date-of-loss right.
The good-faith-settlement-effort finding is a real gating requirement, not a formality; whether it applies (and which accrual date follows) depends on case-specific facts the calculator can't evaluate. Confirm the current subsection text and recent case law with counsel before assuming a specific start date.
How ACV is determined, whether labor cost can be depreciated and the rules on releasing withheld recoverable depreciation.
Replacement cost minus depreciation; whether labor may be depreciated is unsettled
The most frequently cited authority is a federal district court applying Ohio law, which treated ACV as replacement cost less depreciation and did not depreciate labor. There is no Ohio Supreme Court decision on the labor question.
Paterson-Leitch is a federal district court decision applying Ohio law rather than a state appellate ruling. Treat it as persuasive.
Ohio Admin. Code 3901-1-54 statutorily defines how ACV must be calculated on fire and extended coverage property claims and requires insurers to disclose depreciation deductions on request, but it does not itself ban depreciating labor.
Ohio Admin. Code 3901-1-54, part of Ohio's unfair claims settlement practices rules, requires that an insurer determine actual cash value by taking the replacement cost of the property at the time of loss, including sales tax, less any depreciation and that upon the insured's request the insurer must provide documentation detailing all depreciation deductions. The rule does not expressly prohibit or restrict depreciating the labor component of a repair estimate. Separately, under Ohio case law (Perry v. Allstate Indem. Co., 953 F.3d 417 (6th Cir. 2020), applying Ohio law), an insurer may not deduct labor depreciation from an ACV payment unless the policy expressly authorizes it; that limitation currently comes from judicial interpretation of ambiguous policy language rather than from the text of 3901-1-54 itself.
The labor-depreciation restriction in Ohio traces to case law (Perry v. Allstate) construing undefined policy terms, not to an explicit statutory or regulatory labor-depreciation ban; that case-law nuance is noted here for completeness but is not being represented as a statutory rule.
No Ohio statute or regulation sets a deadline or process for paying withheld recoverable depreciation once repairs are complete, so the policy terms control.
Ohio Admin. Code 3901-1-54 covers how ACV is calculated at the initial settlement and requires disclosure of depreciation deductions on request. It does not set a deadline for releasing withheld depreciation after the insured completes repairs and submits proof and it does not require notice of the right to recover that depreciation.
Whether a no-damages-for-delay clause will be enforced against you and the deadline for bringing a construction contract claim.
Void by statute when the delay is the owner's (or a higher-tier contractor's) fault
Ohio directly voids, as against public policy, any construction-contract or subcontract provision that waives or precludes liability for delay when the delay's proximate cause is the owner's act or failure to act (or, in a subcontract, the contractor's). Courts have distinguished a full waiver of liability (barred) from a narrower limitation of damages, such as capping recovery to extended general-conditions costs, which may still be enforceable; case law on exactly where that line falls remains limited.
The statute applies broadly to construction contracts and subcontracts without an explicit public-vs-private carve-out, but 'limitations' short of a full waiver may still be enforced; confirm how a specific damage-limiting (rather than damage-waiving) clause would be treated.
6 years for a written contract claim
Ohio's limitations period for an action on an agreement, contract, or promise in writing is 6 years from accrual, covering an ordinary written construction-contract claim. Two deadlines sit in front of that one on most construction claims. A mechanic's lien and a payment bond claim each run on their own, far shorter clock, counted from last furnishing rather than from breach and missing either one removes the security while leaving the contract claim alive but unsecured. Check those dates first. Accrual is the other half of the question: the period runs from breach, which on a payment dispute is usually the date payment came due rather than the date the work was done.
Ohio's construction statute of repose, R.C. 2305.131, applies to defect claims rather than an ordinary breach of contract action. Check which one governs your claim.
The state-specific rates and requirements that sit underneath a fully burdened hourly labor cost.
New-employer rate is 2.85% for most industries, but a separate, much higher 5.85% new-employer rate applies specifically to construction employers. Experience-rated range is 0.55% to 10.25% (includes a new 0.15% technology/customer-service fee for 2026). Taxable wage base is $9,000.
An employer not yet eligible for an experience rate is assigned the standard new-employer rate of 2.85% for 2026, except a construction industry employer, which is assigned 5.85%, more than double. Experience-rated employers run from 0.55% to 10.25% for 2026, combining an experience component of 0.4% to 10.1% with a new 0.15% Technology and Customer Service Fee created under HB 96, which is scheduled to sunset.
Use the 5.85% construction figure on a construction payroll.
Monopolistic state. Employers must purchase workers' compensation exclusively through the state fund, the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation (BWC); no private insurance option exists for in-state employment.
Ohio is one of four monopolistic-fund states. In-state employers cannot purchase workers' compensation from a private carrier; coverage must be obtained through the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation (BWC), which is the exclusive underwriter, rate-setter and claims administrator for Ohio workers' comp. NCCI class codes are not used for Ohio's monopolistic fund; BWC maintains its own classification and rating structure.
Ohio has its own prevailing-wage law under Ohio Revised Code Chapter 4115. Thresholds are roughly $250,000 for new construction and $75,000 for reconstruction or repair on most public improvements, with lower thresholds for road, street and sewer projects.
Ohio's Prevailing Wage Law, codified at Ohio Revised Code Chapter 4115, requires payment of locally prevailing wage rates on public improvement contracts funded wholly or partly with public money, once the estimated project cost exceeds statutory thresholds. For most public improvements the threshold is over $250,000 for new construction and over $75,000 for reconstruction, repair, or renovation. For infrastructure projects such as roads, streets and sewers, the thresholds are lower, over $101,201 for new construction and over $30,320 for reconstruction. These thresholds are adjusted every two years by the Ohio Department of Commerce using a construction price deflator index, capped at 3% annual change.
The specific dollar thresholds are adjusted periodically by the Ohio Department of Commerce; confirm the current thresholds against com.ohio.gov before relying on the exact dollar figures for a given year.
OSHA enforcement structure, how much weight an OSHA violation carries in a negligence case and whether an injured worker's own employer can be pulled back in.
Modified comparative fault, recovery barred above 50% fault (51% bar)
Recovery is reduced in proportion to fault and barred once the worker is more than 50% at fault. A worker exactly 50% at fault still recovers half.
Ohio settles in its own words the question that divides the other states. s 2315.33 measures the worker against the combined conduct of everyone at fault, naming both 'persons from whom the plaintiff seeks recovery' and 'persons from whom the plaintiff does not seek recovery'. An employer immune under workers' compensation therefore counts on the defence side and helps the worker clear the bar.
The threshold direction matters too. Ohio bars only where the worker's fault is GREATER THAN the combined fault of the others, so an even split still recovers. Kansas, Idaho, Arkansas, Colorado, Nebraska and Tennessee bar at parity and the first five of those measure against the defendants alone rather than against everyone.
Note that 'contributory fault' is defined at s 2307.011(B) to include assumption of the risk, which on a site accident is a live defence rather than a technicality.
Non-economic damages capped at $250,000
The greater of $250,000 or three times economic damages, capped at $350,000 per plaintiff and $500,000 per occurrence. The cap does not apply to permanent and substantial physical deformity, or loss of a limb or organ system.
Federal OSHA: no state plan; monopolistic state workers' comp fund
Ohio has no OSHA-approved state plan for private employers; both public and private employers fall under federal OSHA jurisdiction for safety enforcement. Separately (not an OSHA point, but relevant context), Ohio runs a monopolistic workers' comp system: private insurers cannot write workers' comp coverage in Ohio; employers buy through the state Bureau of Workers' Compensation (BWC) or qualify to self-insure. Under federal jurisdiction the citation is issued by an OSHA area office and contested before the federal Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission. Federal OSHA does not cover state and local government employees, so a public employee injured on a public job falls outside it. Reporting deadlines are a work-related fatality within 8 hours, an inpatient hospitalisation, amputation or loss of an eye within 24 hours. For a construction claim the inspection file matters more than the citation: photographs, measurements, witness statements and the inspector's narrative are usually obtainable and are often the best contemporaneous record of the site.
An OSHA violation is evidence of negligence in Ohio, not negligence per se
The Ohio Supreme Court held in Hernandez v. Martin Chevrolet, Inc. that an OSHA violation does not constitute negligence per se, though it remains usable as evidence. Ohio's general rule turns on how specifically the duty is stated. In Sikora v. Wenzel the court explained that where a statute gives a general, abstract description of a duty the plaintiff must still prove every element of negligence, but where it sets a positive and definite standard of care, so that a jury can find a violation by deciding a single issue of fact, the violation is negligence per se. Sikora applied that test to a statute requiring landlords to comply with the building code and found it specific enough, while allowing lack of notice as an excuse. No Ohio decision applies the same test to a named OSHA regulation.
Negligence per se in Ohio is not liability per se: it settles breach, leaving the plaintiff to prove proximate cause and damages and the violation can be excused.
Statutory employer status is worth checking in Ohio. Third-party claims otherwise turn on premises liability, active participation, retained control and equipment defects.
Those theories are separate from the employer intentional-tort claim under R.C. § 2745.01, which is covered in the entries below.
Exclusivity can be pierced through Ohio's statutory employer-intentional-tort claim.
Ohio Rev. Code §4123.74 generally protects the employer; §2745.01 governs the employer-intentional-tort claim that pierces that protection. In practice exclusivity takes the direct employer off the tort table entirely, whatever the OSHA file shows. The claim runs against the other parties on the site: the general contractor, the owner, another subcontractor, an equipment manufacturer. The employer or its carrier then asserts a lien against whatever the worker recovers from those parties, so the figure the worker actually keeps is the recovery less the lien, the fee and the costs. Whether the lien is reduced for the cost of obtaining the recovery is a separate state question worth asking early, because it moves the net more than most people expect.
Ohio has a dedicated statutory employer-intentional-tort cause of action (R.C. §2745.01), rather than a purely judge-made intentional-tort exception like most states with one.
R.C. § 2745.01 itself sets the standard for piercing exclusivity by intentional tort, requiring a deliberate intent to injure. The Ohio Supreme Court upheld the statute's constitutionality in Kaminski v. Metal & Wire Products Co. Most states with an intentional-tort exception built it through case law instead.
ClaimDuke's calculators compute delay and extended overhead (Eichleay), fully burdened labor rates, ACV/RCV property loss, claim interest and construction-injury settlement ranges. Every calculation is free and live; a documented, citation-backed report is $19.
This page is reference information for your own verification. It is not legal advice and is not a substitute for confirming the current rule with the official source linked above or with counsel. Several states' interest rates float and reset on a schedule (monthly, quarterly or annually), so always check the live source for the figure as of today rather than relying on what is shown here. Which rule actually applies to your specific claim is itself a legal question this page cannot answer for you.
