Michigan Serious Impairment Threshold After McCormick

By Attorney Manny Chahal · Updated May 2026 · Reading time: ~9 min

Michigan’s no-fault system pays your medical bills and wage loss without proof of fault, but it slams the courthouse door on pain-and-suffering claims unless your injury crosses a statutory line called the “serious impairment of body function” threshold. MCL 500.3135, as amended by 2019 PA 21 and 22, sets that line. Whether a Michigan crash victim can sue the at-fault driver for the human costs of an injury — pain, lost enjoyment, disfigurement, the inability to play with a child or return to a trade — turns on a three-prong test the Supreme Court fixed in McCormick v Carrier, 487 Mich 180 (2010).

The Statute: What MCL 500.3135 Actually Requires

The Michigan no-fault act limits third-party tort liability for noneconomic loss from a motor vehicle injury. Under MCL 500.3135(1), the at-fault driver is liable for noneconomic damages only if the injured person has suffered (a) death, (b) serious impairment of body function, or (c) permanent serious disfigurement. The “serious impairment” prong is the one that drives most disputes, because death and permanent disfigurement are usually obvious on the face of the medical record.

The statute then defines the term in MCL 500.3135(5). A serious impairment of body function is an impairment that satisfies all three of the following:

• Objectively manifested. Observable or perceivable from actual symptoms or conditions by someone other than the injured person.
• Important body function. A body function of great value, significance, or consequence to the injured person.
• General ability to lead a normal life. An influence on some of the person’s capacity to live in his or her normal manner of living.

McCormick v Carrier: The Three-Prong Framework

In McCormick, the Michigan Supreme Court rejected the multi-factor test the same court had imposed six years earlier in Kreiner. Justice Hathaway, writing for the majority, found that Kreiner had departed from the plain language of MCL 500.3135 by adding non-statutory hurdles — a temporal requirement, a quality-of-life “trajectory” test, and a non-exhaustive list of factors that lower courts had begun applying as a checklist for dismissal.

The McCormick framework restored the statute to its text. The three prongs above must each be addressed; once they are met, the threshold is satisfied as a matter of law and the case proceeds to a jury on causation and damages.

Prong 1 — Objectively Manifested

The impairment must be observable or perceivable by someone other than the injured person. That does not mean it must show up on an MRI or X-ray, although imaging certainly helps. Medical testimony interpreting symptoms can satisfy the prong — McCormick itself said the question is whether the impairment is supported by objective evidence rather than the plaintiff’s bare say-so. The Court of Appeals in Patrick v Turkelson, 322 Mich App 595 (2018), held that subjective hearing tests interpreted by a treating audiologist could constitute objective manifestation of an inner-ear injury, because the test results were medically observable conditions even though the plaintiff’s own reporting was part of the data input.

Prong 2 — Important Body Function

The function must be of value, significance, or consequence to the particular plaintiff. This is a subjective inquiry, not a universal one. A pianist’s loss of fine motor control in a hand is plainly significant; the same injury in a person who never used a keyboard might be too. Walking, lifting, gripping, hearing, seeing, sleeping, swallowing, sexual function, and cognition have all been treated as important body functions in published opinions.

Prong 3 — General Ability to Lead a Normal Life

The injury must have had an influence — not a complete disruption — on the plaintiff’s normal manner of living. McCormick explicitly held that the statute requires “an influence on some of the person’s capacity,” not a near-total disability. There is no temporal requirement. Recovery within three or four months does not defeat the threshold. In Piccione v Gillette, the Court of Appeals reversed a summary dismissal where a teenager with a clavicle fracture missed two weeks of school and had reduced participation in routine activities before recovering. A finite, weeks-long disruption can still satisfy the prong.

Threshold vs. PIP: Two Different Tracks

Michigan crash victims often conflate the threshold with their no-fault PIP claim. They are separate.

This is why even a “minor” crash victim should pursue PIP benefits aggressively while the threshold question is being worked up. The medical record built during PIP treatment is also the evidence that will, or will not, satisfy McCormick‘s three prongs in the eventual tort case.

Who Decides the Threshold: Judge or Jury?

MCL 500.3135(2)(a) tells the court that the threshold is a question of law for the judge if there is no factual dispute about the nature and extent of the injuries, or if the dispute is not material to the threshold determination. When the medical evidence is genuinely contested — for example, when the defense IME doctor disputes whether the herniated disc shown on imaging is causally related to the crash, or whether a soft-tissue injury affects an important body function — the question goes to the jury.

Plaintiffs win threshold motions at summary disposition when they marshal (1) imaging or clinical findings, (2) treating-physician testimony about what the findings mean for an important body function, and (3) before-and-after lay evidence (work, hobbies, household chores, parenting) showing influence on normal life. Defendants win when one of those three buckets is empty or contradicted on the record itself.

Comparative Fault and the Threshold

Even after a plaintiff clears the threshold, MCL 500.3135(2)(b) imposes a hard rule: damages are reduced by the plaintiff’s percentage of comparative fault, and if the plaintiff is more than 50% at fault, no noneconomic damages are recoverable at all. Economic damages above the PIP cap may still be recoverable proportionally under Michigan’s comparative-fault scheme, MCL 600.6304 and 600.6306.

Statute of Limitations

A third-party auto tort action under MCL 500.3135 must be filed within three years of the date of injury under MCL 600.5805(2). The clock does not stretch because PIP litigation is ongoing on the first-party side. A first-party PIP suit has its own one-year-back recovery rule under MCL 500.3145 — covered separately in our no-fault deadlines guide. Missing either deadline ends the corresponding claim regardless of how strong the threshold case is.

Common Injuries That Clear — and That Do Not Clear — the Threshold

Published Michigan opinions and reported verdicts show predictable patterns. The list below is illustrative, not exhaustive. Every case turns on its own record.

• Typically clears: spinal-fracture surgery, herniated discs with radiculopathy confirmed by EMG, TBI with neuropsych findings, long bone fractures requiring fixation, rotator-cuff tears requiring surgery, post-concussive syndrome with cognitive testing, RSD/CRPS, permanent scarring with functional impact.
• Often contested: soft-tissue injuries without imaging correlate, exacerbations of pre-existing degenerative disc disease, mild TBI without neuropsych or imaging support, anxiety/PTSD without functional limitation evidence, brief lumbar strains that resolve with conservative care.
• Often dismissed: purely subjective complaints with negative imaging, full return to work within days, no treatment beyond ER, no lay evidence of activity restriction.

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