Rodney McCormick v. Larry Carrier

Summary

The court held that the statutory serious-impairment threshold requires an objectively manifested impairment of an important body function that affects some of the plaintiff’s capacity to live in his or her normal manner of living. It rejected the prior judicially created trajectory-based approach and held that plaintiff’s broken ankle, surgeries, rehabilitation, prolonged inability to perform his job, and continuing functional limitations satisfied the threshold as a matter of law. Justice Markman, dissenting, would have retained the prior approach and affirmed because plaintiff’s overall life had returned to normal; Justices Weaver and Hathaway concurred in the result while objecting to aspects of the majority’s stare decisis analysis.