Opinion
11644 Index 301202/14
06-11-2020
Belkis MONAHAN, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. Juan O. REYES, et al., Defendants–Respondents.
Mitchell Dranow, Sea Cliff, for appellant. Robert D. Grace, Brooklyn, for respondents.
Mitchell Dranow, Sea Cliff, for appellant.
Robert D. Grace, Brooklyn, for respondents.
Friedman, J.P., Mazzarelli, Gesmer, Singh, Gonzlez, JJ.
Order, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Alison Y. Tuitt, J.), entered on or about April 13, 2018, which, to the extent appealed from as limited by the briefs, granted defendants' motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint based on plaintiff's inability to demonstrate that she suffered a serious injury to her cervical spine within the meaning of Insurance Law § 5102(d), unanimously affirmed, without costs.
Defendants satisfied their prima facie burden to show that plaintiff did not sustain a serious injury to her cervical spine by submitting the report of their orthopaedic surgeon, who found that plaintiff's own MRI report showed preexisting degenerative changes not causally related to the accident (see Reynoso v. Tradore, 180 A.D.3d 531, 531, 115 N.Y.S.3d 893 [1st Dept. 2020] ; Campbell v. Drammeh, 161 A.D.3d 584, 585, 77 N.Y.S.3d 381 [1st Dept. 2018] ). Although the orthopaedic surgeon did not compare plaintiff's range of motion to normal values, he found no objective evidence of injury upon recent examination using diagnostic tests (see Rodriguez v. Konate, 161 A.D.3d 565, 566, 76 N.Y.S.3d 553 [1st Dept. 2018] ).
In opposition, plaintiff failed to raise an issue of fact. None of her experts addressed the evidence of preexisting degenerative conditions shown in her own medical records or explained why they could not have been the cause of her conditions (see Williams v. Laura Livery Corp., 176 A.D.3d 557, 558, 112 N.Y.S.3d 16 [1st Dept. 2019] ; Auquilla v. Singh, 162 A.D.3d 463, 464, 78 N.Y.S.3d 323 [1st Dept. 2018] ). Plaintiff's experts also failed to adequately address a prior motor vehicle accident which resulted in alleged neck injuries or to negate any inference that that accident was the cause of her current conditions (see Ogando v. National Frgt., Inc., 166 A.D.3d 569, 570, 87 N.Y.S.3d 159 [1st Dept. 2018] ).