D'Ariano v Meldish

D'Ariano v Meldish 2009 NY Slip Op 09545 [68 AD3d 640] December 22, 2009 Appellate Division, First Department Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431. As corrected through Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Alice Gong D'Ariano et al., Appellants,
v
Monique Meldish et al., Respondents.

—[*1] Nick Fiore, Pound Ridge, for appellants.

Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker LLP, New York (Joseph A.H. McGovern of counsel), for respondents.

Order, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Geoffrey D. Wright, J.), entered on or about October 16, 2008, which granted defendants' motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint for lack of serious injury, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

Defendants carried their prima facie burden by showing that the injured plaintiff's disc condition was degenerative and not caused by the trauma of the accident. Plaintiffs failed to adequately address such showing (see DeJesus v Paulino, 61 AD3d 605, 607-608 [2009]); speculation by plaintiff's family physician, that a radiologist who conducted an MRI of plaintiff's lumbar spine would have noted the existence of degenerative disc disease in his report had he seen any, was properly rejected by the motion court. In view of the foregoing, it is unnecessary to address the parties' other contentions. Concur—Sweeny, J.P., Catterson, Renwick, Freedman and Abdus-Salaam, JJ.