Jodi Vasquez, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. MD (2026)

Law Office of Yuriy Prakhin, P.C., Brooklyn (Jason S. Matuskiewicz of counsel), for appellant.

The Zweig Law Firm, P.C., Cedarhurst (Jonah S. Zweig of counsel), for Abul Kalam Azad, MD, respondent.

Marjorie E. Bornes, Freeport, for City Livery Leasing Queens, Inc., and Luis A. Acevedo Martinez, respondents.

Order, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Patsy Gouldborne, J.), entered on or about October 16, 2025, which granted the motions of defendants Abul Kalam Azad, MD, Mark J. Hirschhorn, City Livery Leasing Queens, Inc., and Luis A. Acevedo Martinez for summary judgment dismissing the complaint as against them, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

Defendants established prima facie that plaintiff did not suffer a serious injury as defined by Insurance Law § 5102(d), by submitting expert reports from an orthopedist and a radiologist, each of whom stated that the alleged accident resulted in no causally related permanent injuries to any of the body parts listed in plaintiff's bill of particulars (see Antepara v. Garcia, 194 AD3d 513, 513 [1st Dept 2021] ).

The medical records that plaintiff relied on in opposition to the motion were admissible, since defendants' experts relied on them in their expert reports (cf.  Rivera v. Lopez–Reyes, 203 AD3d 554, 555 [1st Dept 2022] ).  However, plaintiff's expert orthopedist's submissions failed to raise an issue of fact as to whether she sustained a causally related serious injury because he failed to point to anything in those records supporting plaintiff's claim (see id.).  The emergency room records indicated that plaintiff was not sent for any imaging exams, was discharged with pain medication, and that it was doubtful that plaintiff had suffered a significant injury.  To the extent that the expert relied on his own examination of plaintiff, this was insufficient to raise an issue of fact, since the examination was conducted nearly three years after the accident (see Linton v. Gonzales, 110 AD3d 534, 535 [1st Dept 2013] [eight-month gap between day of accident and plaintiff's examination was too long to create an issue of fact as to causation] ).  Moreover, plaintiff's expert failed to address defendants' radiologist's opinion that plaintiff suffered from chronic changes in her shoulders that were not causally related to the accident (see Antepara, 194 AD3d at 514).

In the absence of any evidence that plaintiff's injuries were causally related to the accident, and in light of the fact that plaintiff testified to missing only one

day of work, the court properly dismissed the

-day claim (see Sanchez v. Steele, 149 AD3d 458, 459 [1st Dept 2017] ).

We have considered plaintiff's remaining contentions and find them unavailing.