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What Michigan’s Serious Impairment Test Actually Requires
Michigan’s no-fault act limits when an injured person can recover noneconomic damages from the driver who caused a crash. The limit is often described as a body of case law that has to be read carefully, and for many years that was accurate. Since the 2019 reform it is a statutory test with three written elements.
MCL 500.3135(1) preserves tort liability for noneconomic loss only where the injured person has suffered death, serious impairment of body function, or permanent serious disfigurement. Those are three separate routes, and only the middle one runs through the test that subsection (5) defines.
The Three Elements, All of Which Must Be Met
A serious impairment of body function is an impairment that satisfies all three requirements in MCL 500.3135(5). Meeting two is not enough, and the elements are proved with different kinds of evidence.
The impairment must be objectively manifested, which the statute defines as observable or perceivable from actual symptoms or conditions by someone other than the injured person. That is broader than an imaging result. A limp a physical therapist records, a range-of-motion measurement, or a documented weakness all fit the definition, and the statute does not require that the impairment appear on an MRI or an X-ray.
It must be an impairment of an important body function, which the statute defines as a body function of great value, significance, or consequence to the injured person. The reference point is the person, not a general list, so a hand injury may be important in a way that depends on what that person’s hand does.
And it must affect the injured person’s general ability to lead their normal life, meaning it has had an influence on some of their capacity to live in their normal manner of living. The word is some, not all.
Permanent serious disfigurement is a separate route to the same recovery, and subsection (5) does not define it. The three elements above govern serious impairment of body function only, so a disfigurement claim is not measured against objective manifestation or against an effect on normal life. Death is the third route and is not measured against them either.
There Is No Minimum Duration
The statute settles a question that used to be argued in every case. Although temporal considerations may be relevant, MCL 500.3135(5)(c) states that there is no temporal requirement for how long an impairment must last.
An insurer arguing that an injury resolved too quickly to count is arguing against the text. Duration is evidence bearing on how much a life was affected. It is not a threshold the claimant has to clear, and Neumann Law Group meets that argument most often in Michigan concussion and soft-tissue claims.
The statute also directs how the question is examined. It is inherently fact and circumstance specific to each injured person, must be conducted case by case, and requires comparison of the injured person’s life before and after the incident. That last instruction is the practical one, because it means the proof is largely built from what a person did before the crash, and the records establishing that are usually not medical.
That before-and-after record is far easier to assemble in the first months after a crash than in the second year. We talk these questions through with you. Call us at (800) 525-6386.
Judge or Jury Is Decided by Statute Too
Whether the threshold question reaches a jury is not left to argument. Under MCL 500.3135(2)(a), the issues of serious impairment and permanent serious disfigurement are questions of law for the court where there is no factual dispute about the nature and extent of the injuries, or where a dispute exists but is not material to the determination.
One exception is written into the same provision, and it is specific. For a closed-head injury, a question of fact for the jury is created where a licensed allopathic or osteopathic physician who regularly diagnoses or treats closed-head injuries testifies under oath that there may be a serious neurological injury.
The standard in that exception is deliberately low. The physician testifies that there may be a serious neurological injury, not that there is one, and the qualification attaches to a doctor who regularly diagnoses or treats these injuries rather than to any physician. Securing that testimony is often what keeps a head injury case from being decided on the papers.
Two Ways the Claim Fails Regardless
Clearing the threshold does not end the analysis. Damages are assessed on comparative fault, and under MCL 500.3135(2)(b) they must not be assessed in favor of a party who is more than 50% at fault. A claimant with a serious injury and majority fault recovers no noneconomic damages, which is covered further on our page about how fault is apportioned in Michigan.
Subsection (2)(c) is the second bar. Damages must not be assessed in favor of a party who was operating their own vehicle at the time of injury without the security the no-fault act requires. An uninsured driver injured by someone else’s negligence loses the noneconomic claim on that ground alone.
Both bars operate independently of how serious an injury is, which is why coverage status and fault are worth establishing at the outset rather than after the medical proof is assembled. The interaction between the threshold, PIP benefits, and the mini tort is set out on our Michigan No-Fault Insurance Guide.
Proving How an Injury Changed a Life
The threshold is where most Michigan auto injury claims are won or lost, and the statute rewards proof about a person’s life rather than adjectives about their injury. At Neumann Law Group, we represent injured drivers, passengers, and pedestrians in Michigan personal injury claims from Traverse City to Detroit. If you would like us to look at your situation, call (800) 525-6386 or contact us through our website.