Some big news today for Michigan residents, especially children who have been injured in a Michigan car accident in the past three years.
The Michigan Supreme Court has overturned a previous car accident threshold law that had been one of the nation’s harshest against auto accident victims, including small children injured in car accidents. The case, McCormick vs. Carrier overturns 2004′s Kriener vs. Fischer, which had denied, in many cases, compensation for pain and suffering for accident victims.
According to the Michigan Auto Law Blog, “McCormick says a person can qualify for pain and suffering damages if his or her normal life is affected – not completely altered by a car accident as Kreiner required.”
Michigan children injured in car accidents were particularly affected. In the case of Hannah Shropshire, a Kindergartner who received traumatic brain injuries as a result of a car accident, a Michigan court denied her family pain and suffering compensation. The Court said it was because Hannah could go to school and function like a normal child.
The court disregarded her frequent seizures saying, “Hannah has, by her mother’s account, missed only two weeks of school due to this accident, largely for visits to the doctor, so her injury cannot be said to have affected her ability to attend school. Nor has her injury, or the alleged seizures that come along with it, affected her ability to participate in activities or interact with other students and friends – she enjoys doing many things typical for a girl her age.”
But even if Hannah never faces further complications from her child injury and functions like a “typical girl her age” she will always be at a higher risk for early death, Parkinson’s, dementia, Alzheimer’s, depression, suicide, divorce and other problems.
Fortunately for Michigan Auto Accident victims this court ruling is retroactive three years. So any child victims like Hannah can now re-visit their cases and potentially receive the pain and suffering damages they deserve. If you know any auto accident victims in Michigan, please pass this news on to them.
If you need an excellent car accident lawyer please call my colleague Steve Gursten at 1-800-777-0028 and tell him Ken sent you.
Read more about what the McCormick v. Carrier ruling means for Michigan’s auto accident victims.
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