Action for third-party no-fault benefits; Serious impairment of body function; MCL 500.3135(1); Documents attached to a motion for reconsideration; Independent medical exam (IME)

Declining to consider the exhibits attached for the first time to plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration, the court held that the trial court did not err in determining she did not suffer a serious impairment of body function as a result of the accident. Thus, it affirmed summary disposition for defendant-Salame. The case arose from a low-speed auto accident. The court noted that plaintiff relied on exhibits she had first attached to her motion for reconsideration in the trial court. However, the court “considers only ‘what was properly presented to the trial court before its decision on’” a summary disposition motion. Plaintiff asked it to reverse the trial court’s summary disposition order, not the order denying her motion for reconsideration. Noting that her medical records revealed “a history of back pain before the accident[,]” the court found that none of the records properly before it linked her back pain after it “or the findings on the lumbar MRI to the accident itself. Rather,” the doctor who conducted an IME of plaintiff specifically determined that her “back pain was not linked to the accident. While defendant’s expert linked plaintiff’s neck injury to the accident and conceded that six to eight weeks of chiropractic and physical therapy treatment was reasonable, the records and testimony properly before us are insufficient to establish that plaintiff’s neck injury affected her general ability to lead her normal life. Plaintiff testified that it was primarily her back pain, not her neck pain, that limited her daily life.” The court further noted that some of the changes in her “daily life were not caused by the accident. Rather, they were caused by her grandchildren growing older and jazz concerts not being in season.”