If you have an accident because of injuries from a prior accident, the no-fault insurer of the first accident still is liable to provide coverage for you injuries in the second accident.
Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to plaintiff-Ian, the court held that sufficient evidence established a question of fact as to whether the 2008 motorcycle crash "originated from," "had its origin in," "grew out of," or "flowed from" the 2007 car accident. Thus, the court held that the trial court properly ruled that fact questions precluded summary disposition in the defendant-Progressive's favor. In 11/07, Ian rode as a passenger in a car driven by his brother, defendant-Christopher. Christopher lost control of the vehicle and it struck a freeway guardrail. Ian's head struck a deployed airbag. According to Dr. A, Ian suffered a grand mal seizure triggered by the head injury and his ingestion of Adderal, a prescribed amphetamine. A opined that Ian also probably has an "underlying genetic predisposition" to seizures. After hospitalization for treatment of the initial seizure, Ian received follow-up neurological care from Dr. S, an epilepsy specialist. Progressive was responsible for paying no-fault benefits related to the 2007 accident. In 9/08, while riding his motorcycle Ian "sort of had the same feeling I had from my first seizure, and then I didn't have enough time to pull over or anything. Before I knew it, I just kind of blacked out." His motorcycle crossed four lanes of traffic and struck a parked car. He suffered severe injuries in the 2008 accident, including ventilator-dependent quadriplegia. Ian submitted to Progressive a first-party, no-fault benefits claim arising from the motorcycle crash. It denied coverage, asserting that his claim related only to the 2008 accident and that he forfeited any entitlement to benefits because he neglected to insure the motorcycle. However, the accident for which Ian sought first-party no-fault benefits occurred in 11/07. He contended that his current injuries, including his seizure disorder, arose from his brother's operation of the insured motor vehicle that struck the guardrail. Drs. S and A unequivocally connected Ian's seizure disorder to the trauma he experienced when his head collided with the air bag. "This evidence could support a jury's reasonable conclusion that Ian's 2008 bodily injuries arose from Christopher's operation of the vehicle involved in the 2007 crash. Alternatively stated, the connection between Ian's injuries and the 2007 accident 'is not so remote or attenuated as to preclude a finding that it arose out of the use of a motor vehicle.'" The evidence reasonably supported that "the causal connection between the injury and the use of the motor vehicle was more than incidental, fortuitous, or 'but for.'" The court rejected Progressive's argument that the motorcycle accident constituted a separate and superseding cause of Ian's spinal cord injury, supplanting any relationship between the first accident and the second. "Had Ian injured his spinal cord in 2008 by falling from a ladder during a seizure, Progressive would potentially bear liability. That Ian instead suffered a seizure while riding a motorcycle does not, standing alone, eliminate any connection between his 2007 head injury and the 2008 events." Ian established a triable issue of fact whether his spinal injuries arose from Christopher's operation of the vehicle involved in the 2007 accident. While it was indisputable that the motorcycle accident constituted the most proximate cause of Ian's spinal cord injury, he asserted that his quadriplegia "arose out of" Christopher's operation of a motor vehicle. He based his benefit claim solely on the 2007 accident. Thus, the issue was whether any evidence supported that his quadriplegia arose from that accident. Evidence supported that the first accident bore a "connective relationship" with the second. Affirmed.
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