Opinion
No. 570502/12.
2012-10-5
Danny MATOS and Ydania Marte, Plaintiffs–Appellants, v. Francisco WING and Yvette Phillips, Defendants–Respondents.
Plaintiffs appeal from an order of the Civil Court of the City of New York, Bronx County (Lizbeth González, J.), entered September 29, 2011, which granted defendants' motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint.
Present: SHULMAN, J.P., HUNTER, JR., TORRES, JJ.
PER CURIAM.
Order (Lizbeth González, J.), entered September 29, 2011, modified to reinstate plaintiffs' threshold claims with respect to the “permanent consequential limitation of use” and “significant limitation of use” categories of serious injury, and otherwise affirmed, without costs.
Plaintiffs allege that they sustained serious injuries to their necks and backs as a result of a 1999 automobile accident in which their vehicle was rear-ended by a vehicle owned and operated by defendants. In opposition to defendants' prima facie showing of entitlement to judgment as a matter of law, plaintiffs raised triable issues of fact as to the extent of their injuries and causation. Plaintiffs submitted affirmed reports and affidavits of their physicians, who repeatedly and recently found limitations in plaintiffs' cervical and lumbar ranges of motion, consistent with test results conducted shortly after the accident revealing bulging cervical discs and radiculopathy ( see Ayala v. Cruz, 95 AD3d 699 [2012];Duran v. Kabir, 93 AD3d 566 [2012] ). Plaintiff's doctors adequately addressed the causation issue by connecting the injuries of the relatively young plaintiffs (then ages 21 and 33) to the accident ( see Perl v. Meher, 18 NY3d 208, 219 [2011];Davis v. Alnhmi, 96 AD3d 507 [2012] ).
Plaintiffs' 90/180–day claims are untenable in light of plaintiff Matos' testimony that he missed only “a few weeks” of work and plaintiff Marte's testimony that she missed “maybe a couple of days” of work because of the accident, as well as the lack of sufficient medical evidence to show their inability to perform “substantially all” of their usual daily activities for at least 90 of the initial 180 days following the accident ( see Zambrana v. Timothy, 95 AD3d 422 [2012];Williams v. Perez, 92 AD3d 528 [2012] ).
THIS CONSTITUTES THE DECISION AND ORDER OF THE COURT.