Ohio Consumer Sales Practices Act: Rights and Remedies

Ohio regulates most retail and service transactions through a single statute: the Consumer Sales Practices Act, codified at Ohio Rev. Code Chapter 1345. The Act sets out what a business selling to the public cannot do, gives the buyer a private right of action in court, and gives the Ohio Attorney General separate authority to sue, write rules, and collect penalties. This page introduces that framework: the vocabulary, the prohibitions, the remedies, the filing deadlines, and the narrower Ohio statutes that sit alongside it.

What the Consumer Sales Practices Act covers

The Act applies to consumer transactions: the sale, lease, or transfer of goods, services, or intangibles to an individual for personal, family, or household purposes. Business-to-business purchases and sales between two private individuals fall outside it. The definitions the whole chapter runs on, including “supplier,” “consumer,” and “consumer transaction,” are set out in the opening sections of Chapter 1345.

Two prohibitions carry most of the weight. Ohio Rev. Code § 1345.02(A) states that no supplier shall commit an unfair or deceptive act or practice in connection with a consumer transaction, and that such an act violates the section “whether it occurs before, during, or after the transaction.” That last clause matters in practice. A misleading advertisement, a misleading sales pitch, and a misleading refusal to honor a warranty after the sale are all reachable under the same provision.

Ohio Rev. Code § 1345.03(A) runs parallel and prohibits unconscionable acts or practices in connection with a consumer transaction, again before, during, or after. Division (B) of that section lists seven factors a court weighs, and division (C) excludes the origination of residential mortgage loans from its reach.

Ohio courts do not read these sections in isolation. Under § 1345.02(C), a court construing the unfair-or-deceptive prohibition gives “due consideration and great weight” to Federal Trade Commission orders and trade regulation rules and to how federal courts have interpreted 15 U.S.C. § 45(a)(1), the federal unfairness and deception standard. Federal FTC doctrine is therefore persuasive authority on an Ohio state-law claim.

Key terms the Act uses

Supplier. The seller, lessor, assignor, or franchisor in a consumer transaction, or anyone soliciting one. The label follows the role, not the size of the business: a sole proprietor doing driveway repairs is a supplier in the same sense a national retailer is.

Consumer transaction. The transaction itself, defined by what is sold and to whom rather than by dollar amount. There is no minimum purchase price for the Act to apply.

Deceptive act. A representation, omission, or practice likely to mislead a reasonable consumer. Section 1345.02(B) lists ten representations that are deceptive by definition, including representing that goods are new when they are not, that repair or replacement is needed when it is not, that a specific price advantage exists when it does not, and that a transaction involves or does not involve a warranty when the representation is false.

Unconscionable act. Conduct that takes unfair advantage of the consumer rather than misstating a fact. Knowingly selling to someone unable to protect their own interests, or extracting a price grossly exceeding the price of similar goods, falls in this category under § 1345.03(B).

Public inspection file. A record the Attorney General maintains of rules, written policy statements, and court decisions finding violations. The file has consequences for damages, described further below, and the duty to maintain it comes from Ohio Rev. Code § 1345.05(A)(3).

Deceptive acts and unconscionable acts

Beyond the statutory lists, the Attorney General has authority under § 1345.05(B)(2) to adopt substantive rules defining, with reasonable specificity, acts and practices that violate sections 1345.02, 1345.03, and 1345.031. Those rules are published in the Ohio Administrative Code at Chapter 109:4-3, running from Rule 109:4-3-01 through Rule 109:4-3-18. They address bait advertising, unavailability of advertised goods, exclusions and limitations in advertisements, and substantiation of advertising claims, among other subjects.

Those rules are worth reading before a claim rather than after, because a practice defined as deceptive by rule before the transaction occurred unlocks the enhanced damages described in the next section. A practice that only a court later finds deceptive, in a decision not yet on public file, does not.

One provision is easy to overlook. Under § 1345.02(G), a supplier’s failure to obtain or maintain any registration, license, bond, or insurance that state law or a local ordinance requires for that trade is itself an unfair or deceptive act or practice. An unlicensed contractor operating where a local ordinance requires licensing has committed a Consumer Sales Practices Act violation independent of the quality of the work.

What a consumer can recover

Ohio Rev. Code § 1345.09 sets the remedies, and it splits them into two tracks depending on how clearly established the violation already was.

Under division (A), for a violation of § 1345.02, § 1345.03, or § 1345.031, a consumer in an individual action may rescind the transaction or recover actual economic damages plus an amount not exceeding $5,000 in noneconomic damages.

Under division (B), the remedy is larger where the practice had already been declared deceptive or unconscionable by an Attorney General rule adopted before the transaction, or had already been determined by an Ohio court to violate those sections in a decision made available for public inspection before the supplier’s conduct. In that situation the consumer may rescind or recover three times actual economic damages or $200, whichever is greater, plus up to $5,000 in noneconomic damages. Treble damages under division (B) are not available in a class action; a class instead proceeds for damages or other appropriate relief under Ohio Civil Rule 23.

Rescission carries its own timing rule. Division (C)(1) of § 1345.09 requires that revocation of the transaction occur within a reasonable time after the consumer discovers or should have discovered the ground for it, and before any substantial change in the condition of what was purchased. A consumer who keeps using a vehicle for a year after learning of the defect stands in a weaker rescission position than one who stops and gives notice, whatever the merits of the underlying claim.

Two further remedies sit in the same section. Division (D) allows any consumer to seek a declaratory judgment, an injunction, or other appropriate relief against a practice that violates the chapter. Division (F) allows a court to award reasonable attorney fees to the prevailing party in two circumstances: where the consumer brought or maintained a groundless action in bad faith, or where the supplier knowingly committed a violating act or practice. Fee awards are limited to work reasonably performed and are further constrained by § 1345.092. Division (H) preserves other theories, so a Chapter 1345 claim can be pleaded alongside breach of contract, breach of warranty, or common-law fraud.

Deadlines for bringing a claim

The limitation period for a private claim is in Ohio Rev. Code § 1345.10(C). An action under sections 1345.01 to 1345.13 may not be brought more than two years after the occurrence of the violation, or more than one year after the termination of proceedings by the Attorney General on the same conduct, whichever is later.

The second branch is the part consumers miss. If the Attorney General has an open enforcement action covering the same supplier practice, the private window can extend past the ordinary two years, running instead for one year after those proceedings end. The Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Section resources and lawsuit records are where a consumer checks whether such an action exists.

Other Ohio consumer statutes carry their own periods, and the general statutes of limitation for contract and warranty claims run separately. A single dispute can therefore be timely under one theory and barred under another.

The Attorney General’s enforcement role

The Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Section enforces the Act on behalf of the state. Its published description is that it “protects Ohioans from predatory and illegal business practices” using authority granted by the Consumer Sales Practices Act and other statutes, and it operates a help center at 800-282-0515 for consumer complaints and inquiries.

State enforcement is not the same thing as a private claim, and it does not produce a judgment for an individual consumer. Ohio Rev. Code § 1345.07 authorizes the Attorney General to seek an injunction against a violating practice and to seek civil penalties: up to $5,000 for each day an injunction is violated, and up to $25,000 in the circumstances division (D) describes. Penalties collected are distributed one-quarter to the county treasurer and three-quarters to the state’s consumer protection enforcement fund. Division (E) sets the state’s own limitation period, barring an action to recover for a transaction more than two years after the violation occurred.

The private and public tracks intersect in two places. First, under § 1345.09(E), when a consumer files an individual action for declaratory or injunctive relief, or a class action, the clerk of court mails a copy of the complaint to the Attorney General, who may then apply to intervene. Second, when the judgment becomes final, the clerk mails it to the Attorney General for inclusion in the public inspection file. That filing is what converts a court holding into the kind of established violation that supports treble damages for the next consumer.

Filing a complaint with the Attorney General and filing a lawsuit are separate acts with different consequences. A complaint prompts a state review and may lead to informal resolution or a state enforcement action. It does not preserve an individual’s damages claim or pause the two-year period in § 1345.10(C).

Other Ohio consumer statutes

Several narrower Ohio statutes overlap Chapter 1345, and a violation of one is often also a Consumer Sales Practices Act violation.

Home solicitation sales. For a sale solicited at the buyer’s residence, Ohio Rev. Code § 1345.22 gives the buyer the right to cancel until midnight of the third business day after the day the buyer signs the agreement or offer to purchase. The seller must include a written cancellation notice whose required wording is prescribed by Ohio Rev. Code § 1345.23: “You, the buyer, may cancel this transaction at any time prior to midnight of the third business day after the date of this transaction.”

Lemon law. Ohio’s new motor vehicle warranty statute sits at the end of the same chapter. Under Ohio Rev. Code § 1345.72, where a nonconformity is reported during the first year after original delivery or the first 18,000 miles of operation, whichever comes earlier, the manufacturer, its agent, or the dealer must make the repairs necessary to conform the vehicle to the express warranty.

Debt collection and credit. Collection conduct in Ohio is governed by the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act together with Chapter 1345 principles, and Ohio’s general limitation periods determine how long a creditor has to sue on a written contract or an account. Garnishment limits, statute-of-limitations questions, and collector-contact rules are treated in the individual articles indexed below.

Contractor and licensing disputes. Because § 1345.02(G) makes a missing license, bond, or registration a deceptive act, home-improvement disputes frequently proceed on both a workmanship theory and a Chapter 1345 theory at once. The relevant text is in Ohio Rev. Code § 1345.02(G).

Where a dispute fits more than one statute, the theories are cumulative rather than exclusive. Section 1345.09(H) preserves any other cause of action a consumer has, and the practical consequence is that Ohio consumer claims are usually pleaded in the alternative.

Specific procedures and topics