Court Opinion

ID: 9730584
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:16:52.989656+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:07.624428
License: Public Domain

J. C. Ravitz, J.
(dissenting). I respectfully dissent. The lead opinion denies plaintiff her day in court in spite of the fact that nearly four years after the automobile accident in which she was injured she continues to have difficulty sitting, sleeping, and driving and suffers from post-traumatic neurosis.
The majority claims that plaintiff’s injuries neither are objectively manifested nor affect her ability to lead a normal life.
*626I disagree with the proposition that no question of material fact exists with respect to plaintiff’s ability to lead a normal life. Dr. Brosius testified that in July of 1984 he diagnosed plaintiff as suffering from post-traumatic neurosis. Plaintiff complained to him of anxiety and tension, and fear of driving. He felt that her psychiatric problems were temporarily disabling. He described a disabling illness as one in which the patient cannot work, drive an automobile, climb stairs, dress or feed herself. He recommended a thirty-day disability, thinking that plaintiff "would probably respond, at least to some degree, in thirty days”.
Dr. John Esslinger diagnosed plaintiff on May 8, 1980, as "a 39-year-old woman who apparently has had a rather severe strain and sprain of the cervical, dorsal and lumbar ligamentous and musculature tissues, and who is having difficulty with rehabilitating from same”.
On August 4, 1983, plaintiff testified that she was angry over having three to four years taken from her life and angry over losing the control she once had over her life. At the time of her deposition, August 4, 1983, plaintiff was working part-time for an agency which contracts out workers. According to plaintiff, the employment is "not as regular as I wish I could handle”. Plaintiff testified that, on a weekday after work, she is "recovering from the job and the problems that it gives my back, so I usually stay home”, and "stay in bed or walk around the apartment complex”. Plaintiff’s back injury causes her many problems. She testified that it was very uncomfortable for her to drive or sit, and that she experienced discomfort in the general movements she once took for granted. She has difficulty sleeping because it is difficult for her to find a comfortable position.
Clearly, the accident has caused plaintiff injuries *627which affect her ability to lead a normal life. Sitting, driving and sleeping are activities which are a part of everyone’s daily routine. Brosius felt plaintiff’s neurosis was "disabling”. To the extent plaintiff engages in daily activities in spite of the pain and psychiatric problems she endures in an attempt to lead a normal life, she should not be denied compensation for noneconomic loss.
I also disagree with the majority’s view that plaintiff’s injuries are not objectively manifested. The majority cites Williams v Payne, 131 Mich App 403, 410; 346 NW2d 564 (1984), in which a panel of this Court held that in order for an injury to be objectivly manifested it must be capable of "medical measurement”. The "medical measurement” test espoused in Williams is a convenient method for reducing litigation in automobile cases. However, it is not rationally related to the Legislature’s goal of preventing over-compensation for minor injuries. Soft-tissue injuries and psychiatric trauma are difficult or impossible to measure medically. Yet, persons who suffer with these injuries for years would certainly gladly trade places with those who suffer a badly fractured bone and are incapacited for 6 or 7 months, but who thereafter are able to lead perfectly normal lives. See, e.g., Cassidy, supra, p 504; Range v Gorosh (After Remand), 140 Mich App 712; 364 NW2d 686 (1984).
Williams v Payne suggests that the only alternative to the "medical measurement” test is the use of the "patient’s complaints of pain substantiated only by the patient’s limited activities”. 131 Mich App 410. Where the ordinary means of diagnosis and prescription of treatment are such subjective indications from a patient, a doctor’s diagnosis of injury should suffice to satisfy'the objective manifestation requirement announced in Cassidy. See Argenta v Shahan, 135 Mich App 477; 354 NW2d *628796 (1984). See also MRE 803(4) (statement to physician for purpose of diagnosis or treatment as exception to hearsay rule).
In the instant case, Dr. Esslinger diagnosed plaintiff after plaintiff performed range of motion, flexion, and straight-leg raising tests, during which plaintiff communicated the pain accompanying these maneuvers. Dr. Brosius diagnosed plaintiff as suffering from post-traumatic neurosis after plaintiff explained her emotions in the years following the accident. The doctors’ abilities to diagnose based on these assertions should satisfy the objective manifestation requirement announced in Cassidy. To deny recovery because such injuries are not capable of "medical measurement” denies compensation to a large class of individuals who suffer a greatly reduced quality of life as a result of automobile accidents. Clearly, the Legislature did not intend such an arbitrary hurdle as that imposed by the "medical measurement” test.
I would reverse.