Wade Clark Mulcahy LLP

<strong></strong>The dreaded "90/180 day rule" is a bane of defendants in the context of New York motor vehicle accident suits. The rule, encompassed within Insurance Law Section 5102(d), states that a motor vehicle plaintiff's injury is not "serious" enough to maintain a suit unless that plaintiff is significantly limited in daily activities for 90 of the first 180 days after the accident occurs. Not surprisingly, the entire physical therapy industry owes a debt of gratitude to this rule, because plaintiffs are well-advised to document their treatment for the first six months after the accident.
<p dir="ltr">Conversely, since motor vehicle lawsuits need not be commenced for three years, defendants' doctors do not even examine plaintiffs until well after the expiration of 180 days, making it virtually impossible to rebut the contemporaneous reports of plaintiffs' doctors.</p>
<p dir="ltr">In <a href="http://www.courts.state.ny.us/reporter/3dseries/2013/2013_01022.htm"><em>Calcano v. Rodriguez</em>,</a>  a plaintiff underwent an MRI on her shoulder five weeks after the accident, a significant tear was observed, and the plaintiff underwent surgery months later. Notwithstanding the degenerative pathology observed by the defendant's doctor in reviewing the same MRI film, the Second Department reversed the trial court and found that it was unable to rule, as a matter of law, that the injuries were not proximately caused by the accident.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The concurring opinion goes a step further, noting that if a plaintiff develops subjective complaints after an accident, then there is an automatic issue of fact as to causation regardless of whatever degenerative issues are present. Decisions like this one should be kept in mind before pursuing a Threshold motion for summary judgment, absent a blatant pre-existing condition, subsequent lapse in treatment, or intervening injury, which all can serve to disrupt the causal link between the accident and the injury.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Special thanks Brian Gibbons for his contributions to this post.  For more information, please contact Denise Fontana Ricci at <a href="mailto:dricci@wcmlaw.com">dricci@wcmlaw.com</a>.</p>
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