Rosa v. Mejia

In Rosa v. Mejia, 95 AD3d 402, 943 N.Y.S.2d 470 (1st Dept 2012), a case where the plaintiff did not present any admissible proof that she was evaluated for the injuries which she tried to attribute to the accident until five months after the accident, the Court found plaintiff did not prove causation. The Court held: The recent Court of Appeals decision in Perl v. Meher (18 NY3d 208, 960 N.E.2d 424, 936 N.Y.S.2d 655 2011) does not require a different result. Perl did not abrogate the need for at least a qualitative assessment of injuries soon after an accident (see Salman v. Rosario, 87 AD3d 482, 484, 928 N.Y.S.2d 531 2011). In fact, the Court noted with approval the comment in a legal article that "a contemporaneous doctor's report is important to proof of causation; an examination by a doctor years later cannot reliably connect the symptoms with the accident. But where causation is proved, it is not unreasonable to measure the severity of the injuries at a later time" (18 NY3d at 217-218). "While the Court of Appeals in Perl "rejected a rule that would make contemporaneous quantitative measurements a prerequisite to recovery" (Perl v. Meher 18 NY3d 208 at 218, 960 N.E.2d 424, 936 N.Y.S.2d 655), it confirmed the necessity of some type of contemporaneous treatment to establish that a plaintiff's injuries were causally related to the incident in question." (Rosa v. Mejia, 95 AD3d 402, 943 N.Y.S.2d 470.)