Michigan motorcycle riders who survive a serious crash and seek compensation for their pain, suffering, and loss of enjoyment of life face a legal obstacle that does not exist in most other states: the serious impairment of body function threshold. Before non-economic damages are available from the at-fault driver, an injured Michigan rider must establish that the crash produced an objectively manifested impairment of an important body function that affects their general ability to lead their normal life. This threshold was designed to filter out minor claims from the tort system, but in practice it is contested in virtually every Michigan personal injury case involving non-economic damages, including motorcycle cases where the injuries are anything but minor. How the threshold is established, and whether it survives the insurer’s challenge, depends almost entirely on how the medical record was built during the treatment period.
The Michigan motorcycle crash lawyers who handle these cases advise clients about the documentation their physicians need to generate from the first appointment, not after the insurer has already challenged the threshold and the medical record reveals gaps that cannot be retroactively filled.
What Objectively Manifested Actually Means
Michigan courts have interpreted the objectively manifested requirement to mean that the impairment must be observable or perceivable from actual symptoms or conditions, not just reported subjectively by the injured person. An injury documented by imaging, physical examination findings, range-of-motion measurements, or functional capacity evaluations is objectively manifested. An injury described only in the injured person’s own account of their symptoms, without supporting clinical findings, may not satisfy the threshold even if the person’s symptoms are genuine and severe. This is why the quality of clinical documentation matters so much: a treating physician who notes objective examination findings at each visit, rather than relying on the patient’s subjective symptom report, creates the threshold record that survives the insurer’s challenge.
What Affects the General Ability to Lead a Normal Life
The second component of Michigan’s serious impairment threshold requires showing that the impairment affects the injured person’s general ability to lead their normal life. Michigan courts have interpreted this to mean a significant effect on the injured person’s normal life activities, not necessarily a total or permanent inability to perform them. A motorcycle rider who could no longer perform the physical labor their job required, who could no longer participate in recreational activities that were central to their pre-crash life, or whose sleep, personal care, and household function were significantly disrupted by the injury’s consequences has been affected in their general ability to lead their normal life. The documentation that establishes this impact is the combination of treating physician notes addressing functional limitations, the injured person’s own detailed account of how daily life has changed, and in significant cases expert vocational or psychological testimony about the injury’s life consequences.
How the Threshold Contest Plays Out in Michigan Courts
The serious impairment threshold is typically contested through a motion for summary disposition filed by the defendant before trial, arguing that the plaintiff has failed to establish a genuine issue of material fact on the threshold question. Michigan courts decide these motions by reviewing the medical records, deposition testimony, and any other evidence bearing on whether the impairment is objectively manifested and whether it affects the plaintiff’s general ability to lead a normal life. A plaintiff whose medical record contains explicit, consistent documentation of objective findings and functional limitations is in a significantly stronger position on this motion than one whose record documents injuries but not their functional consequences.
Building the Record From Day One After a Michigan Motorcycle Crash
The threshold documentation strategy begins at the first medical appointment after the crash. Every treating provider who examines the injured rider should document specific objective findings, specific functional limitations, and the specific ways those limitations affect the injured person’s daily activities and employment. This documentation should continue throughout the entire treatment period, not only in an initial evaluation and a final report. Gaps in treatment, periods without documented care, and appointments where only subjective symptoms were recorded without objective findings are all points the insurer will use in the summary disposition motion to argue the threshold has not been met. The Michigan Legislature’s MCL 500.3135 text on serious impairment sets out the complete statutory definition of serious impairment of body function and the legislative history of how Michigan courts have interpreted it in personal injury cases.