| Santana v Khan |
| 2008 NY Slip Op 01594 [48 AD3d 318] |
| February 21, 2008 |
| Appellate Division, First Department |
| Mayra Santana, Plaintiff, and Geraldo Lopez,Appellant, v Nazam Khan, Respondent, et al., Defendants. |
—[*1] Baker, McEvoy, Morrissey & Moskovits, P.C., New York City (Michael I. Josephs ofcounsel), for respondent.
Judgment, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Mary Ann Brigantti-Hughes, J.), entered on orabout December 6, 2006, dismissing the complaint on behalf of plaintiff-appellant pursuant to anorder that granted defendant's motion for summary judgment as against plaintiff-appellant forlack of a serious injury as required by Insurance Law § 5102 (d), unanimously affirmed,without costs.
Defendant's medical evidence in support of the motion showed that appellant has normalrange of motion in his cervical and lumbar spine and shoulders and that he did not otherwisesustain a serious injury as a result of the accident, and therefore satisfied defendant's initialburden on the motion "notwithstanding the existence of MRI reports indicating that [appellant]had herniated or bulging discs" (Style vJoseph, 32 AD3d 212, 214 [2006]). Summary judgment was properly granted asappellant's opposition failed to adduce evidence of a limitation of range based on objectivemedical findings made within a reasonable time after the accident (see Thompson v Abbasi, 15 AD3d95, 98-99 [2005]; Toulson v YoungHan Pae, 13 AD3d 317, 319 [2004]). In addition, in response to defendant's showing ofdisc dessication and other degenerative findings in appellant's spinal MRIs, appellant's expertmerely speculated that the [*2]injuries were causally related to thesubject accident (see Pommells vPerez, 4 NY3d 566, 579-580 [2005]; Diaz v Anasco, 38 AD3d 295, 296 [2007]).Concur—Lippman, P.J., Andrias, Nardelli, Buckley and Acosta, JJ.