| Pou v E&S Wholesale Meats, Inc. |
| 2009 NY Slip Op 08970 [68 AD3d 446] |
| December 3, 2009 |
| Appellate Division, First Department |
| Carlos A. Pou, Respondent, v E&S Wholesale Meats, Inc.,et al., Appellants. |
—[*1] The Lynch Law Firm, LLP, Suffern (Arthur V. Lynch of counsel), for respondent.
Order, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Mary Ann Brigantti-Hughes, J.), entered January 23,2009, which denied defendants' motion for summary judgment, unanimously reversed, on thelaw, without costs, the motion granted and the complaint dismissed.
Defendants met their initial burden of demonstrating the absence of any permanent orsignificant physical limitation of plaintiff's lumbar or cervical spine by submitting the affirmedreport of an expert who examined plaintiff and concluded, based upon objective tests conducted,that he had not suffered a permanent consequential limitation or a significant limitation (see Onishi v N & B Taxi, Inc., 51AD3d 594, 595 [2008]). In opposition, plaintiff failed to raise a triable issue of fact.
Plaintiff's expert's assertions of range-of-motion limitations during the period shortly afterthe accident were conclusory, and were contradicted by other records from plaintiff's therapynoting a full range of motion involving both the lumbar and cervical spine. Plaintiff's expert'smore recent findings, occurring some 4½ years after the accident, while quantitative, aretoo remote in time to raise an inference that plaintiff's purported present limitations werecausally related to the accident (seeDanvers v New York City Tr. Auth., 57 AD3d 252 [2008]). Nor has plaintiff explainedthe 4½-year gap in treatment, following six months of therapy. Plaintiff's self-servingstatements that he felt he had reached the maximum benefit and had learned to live with the painare insufficient explanations for suspending treatment (see Thompson v Abbasi, 15 AD3d 95, 99 [2005]; Zoldas vLouise Cab Corp., 108 AD2d 378, 383 [1985]; cf. Toure v Avis Rent A Car Sys., 98NY2d 345, 355 [2002]). He thus failed to raise any triable issue of fact as to his suffering of aserious injury causally connected to the accident.
Defendants also established prima facie that plaintiff did not suffer a 90/180-day injury, andplaintiff failed to raise a triable issue of fact, given his testimony that he was out of work for a"couple of days only" (see Gorden vTibulcio, 50 AD3d 460, 463 [2008]; Guadalupe v Blondie Limo, Inc., 43 AD3d 669, 670 [2007]).Concur—Saxe, J.P., Friedman, Acosta, Renwick and Abdus-Salaam, JJ.