When a Buffalo resident suffers a personal injury in a motor vehicle accident, he or she is required to meet the “serious injury” threshold before damages may be recovered. Briefly put, the purpose of the “serious injury” threshold is to weed out cases involving only minor injuries. New York State law sets forth several categories of serious injury that define when an injury qualifies.
Recently, the highest court in New York State, the Court of Appeals, issued a ruling addressing three separate cases involving serious injury: Perl v. Meher, Adler v. Bayer and Moonan v. Batchi. The rulings in these cases provide the lower courts with additional guidance regarding when an injury qualifies as a serious injury.
While the cases addressed several issues related to the serious injury threshold, perhaps the most important issue involved the handling of pre-existing conditions. This is an issue when, for example, an older plaintiff has signs of arthritis in the neck but suffers additional injury to the neck following the motor vehicle collision. The defense frequently argues in such cases that the entire injury is pre-existing and, therefore, the judge should dismiss the case because there is no proof of serious injury.
The Court of Appeals found that in such cases, whether the condition was pre-existing or caused by the accident is a question of fact that should generally be left to the jury’s decision. So long as both sides present competent medical proof regarding their position, the judge should allow the jury to make the decision instead of dismissing the personal injury lawsuit.
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