Day on Torts
The Tennessee savings statute runs from the date the order of voluntary dismissal is entered, even if the court retains jurisdiction over the case for remaining issues.
In Salas v. Rosdeutscher, No. M2025-00244-COA-R9-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. July 16, 2026), the plaintiff filed an HCLA claim against the defendant. The defendant responded by filing a motion to dismiss and a motion for sanctions against the plaintiff’s counsel. The plaintiff filed a motion for voluntary dismissal, and the trial court entered an order of voluntary dismissal in March 2020. The trial court retained jurisdiction of the case to determine the sanctions issued, and entered an order awarding sanctions in April 2021.
In January 2021, the plaintiff served the defendant a second pre-suit notice under the HCLA, and she filed this second suit in May 2021. The defendant moved to dismiss the complaint, asserting that the claim was time-barred because the savings statute had expired. The trial court ultimately ruled for the plaintiff, holding that the savings statute did not begin to run until the sanctions order was entered, but the Court of Appeals reversed.
Under the savings statute, Tenn. Code Ann. § 28-1-105, a plaintiff can refile his or her case if “(1) the initial case was ‘commenced’ within the applicable statute of limitation; (2) the initial case must have been dismissed for reasons not ‘on the merits’; and (3) the case must have been refiled ‘within one year of the voluntary dismissal of the first action.” (internal citations omitted). Here, the issue was whether plaintiff had satisfied the third prong, with the Court of Appeals ultimately ruling that she had not.
Tennessee Rule of Civil Procedure 41 governs voluntary dismissals. The Rule provides that a court must enter an order of voluntary dismissal, and it specifically states that “[t]he date of entry of the order will govern the running of pertinent time periods.” The Court of Appeals disagreed with the trial court’s finding that the savings statute should run from the latest possible date, and instead found that the clear language of the rule governed. The Court wrote:
Tennessee Rule of Civil Procedure 41.01(3) provides that “[t]he date of entry of the order [of dismissal] will govern the running of pertinent time periods.” Nothing in Rule 41.01 or the Savings Statute suggests that be a final judgment must be entered before the saving year commences, nor have we found any Tennessee caselaw stating that such a requirement exists. Rather, the two most pertinent Tennessee cases, Parrish and Frazier, reinforce the language of Rule 41.01(3) by looking to the entry date of the order of dismissal to determine when the Savings Statute commenced, regardless of whether there was a final judgment or not. In sum, we conclude that the saving year started to run on the date the trial court entered the order of voluntary dismissal, March 26, 2020.
The order granting voluntary dismissal was entered in the first case in March 2020, and the plaintiff did not file her second case until May 2021. Because the plaintiff did not file her second action within one year of the entry of the order of voluntary dismissal in the first action, the trial court should have dismissed the second HCLA case.
This opinion was released eight months after oral arguments.