New York’s Serious Injury Law And The 90 Out Of 180 Day Rule
New York car accident lawyer Michael Joseph had another impressive win in the Queens Supreme Court on the serious injury law issue. Nowadays many less experienced and less savvy personal injury lawyers are avoiding car accident cases where there is no fracture. However, out New York City and Westchester personal injury lawyers are continuing to win these cases.
New York’s law will not let anyone injured in a car accident or hit by a car to recover any money for pain and suffering unless they have suffered a serious injury as defined by New York law. The definition of serious injury is cumbersome, confusing and is often misunderstood by juries. The technical definition of serious injury under New York Insurance Law is a personal injury which causes death, dismemberment; significant disfigurement; a fracture, loss of a fetus; permanent loss of use of a body organ, member, function or system, permanent consequential limitation of use of a body organ or member, significant limitation of use of a body function or system, or a medically determined injury or impairment of a non-permanent nature which prevents the injured person from performing substantially all of the material acts which constitute such person’s usual and customary daily activities for not less than ninety days during the one hundred eighty days immediately following the occurrence of the injury or impairment.
The last category is often called the 90/180 category. Our New York City car accident lawyers have won numerous cases before getting to trial on the 90/180 category. Usually defense lawyers make a motion to the Court to dismiss the case arguing that certain injuries do not constitute a serious injury as a matter of law. Our car accident lawyers have turned the tables on the defense lawyers and have started moving for summary judgment under the 90/180 day category and obtaining rulings before trial that the Plaintiff has suffered a serious injury. This removes the issue from the case and prevents juries from getting confused on this issue.
Recently our car accident attorneys won yet another case in Queens by winning a summary judgment motion in the Queens Supreme Court which established that our client had a serious injury under the 90/180 law. Our client was a pedestrian who was hit by a car and suffered a knee injury. In general where a Plaintiff does not work for 90 days following the accident, they can establish the 90/180 day category. Even though defense lawyers and insurance companies usually hire doctors to say that Plaintiffs are fine, even when they are not, they cannot usually comment on a injured person’s condition within the first 90 days, when they see the Plaintiff years after the accident. Our New York car accident attorneys will continue to fight for New York’s car accident victims.