Victim who suffered T-11, 12 vertebral compression fracture is allowed opportunity to prove "serious impairment."
Ryan Pethers suffered a vertebral fracture in a T-bone collision with Gregory Burmania who missed a stop sign and was killed in the resulting collision. Pethers sued Burmania's Estate but the judge ruled that his injuries did not meet the Kreiner standard of a "life-altering" serious impairment of bodily function. Pethers appealed to the Court of Appeals, and in the interim the Michigan Supreme Court overturned the "life-altering" requirement that the Engler Majority had substituted for the statutory definition of a serious impairment of bodily function. Given the return to the previous statutory definition, the Court of Appeals returned Pethers' claim to the trial court to make a new assessment of serious impairment.