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NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE
APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION
SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY
APPELLATE DIVISION
DOCKET NO. A-1332-04T21332-04T2
LARITZA ALONSO,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
DEVANANAD MAHABIR, CHANDRAWA
MOHABIR, and CETSIO VAZQUEZ,
Defendants-Respondents.
Submitted November 29, 2005 - Decided
Before Judges Kestin and Hoens.
On appeal from the Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Union County, Docket
No. L-413-04.
Michael S. Simitz, attorney for appellant.
Respondents have not filed a brief.
PER CURIAM
Plaintiff Laritza Alonso appeals from the August 20, 2004 order of the Law Division judge dismissing her personal
injury complaint against defendants Devananad Mahabir, Chandrawa Mohabir, and Cetsio Vazquez and from the
October 14, 2004 order denying her motion for reconsideration. We reverse and remand.
Plaintiff's complaint arises from a motor vehicle accident on August 7, 2001, in which she was injured. At the
time of the accident, she was sixteen years old. She was a passenger in a vehicle operated by defendant Cetsio
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a1332-04.opn.html
Vazquez when it collided with a vehicle driven by defendant Chandrawa Mohabir and owned by defendant
Devananad Mahabir. More specifically, plaintiff asserts that as a result of the accident she sustained injuries to her
head, right knee, left arm, left elbow, back and neck. Because the complaint was governed by the verbal threshold,
see Automobile Insurance Cost Reduction Act (AICRA), N.J.S.A. 39:6A-1.1 to -35, defendants Mahabir and Mohabir
moved for summary judgment. Their motion challenged both the sufficiency of the objective, credible medical
evidence of these injuries and the seriousness of the injuries as they subjectively impacted upon plaintiff. See Oswin
v. Shaw, 129 N.J. 290, 318-19 (1992); James v. Torres, 354 N.J. Super. 586, 596 (App. Div. 2002), certif. denied, 175
N.J. 547 (2003).
Defendant Vazquez cross-moved, seeking summary judgment on the same grounds. In opposition to this
motion and cross-motion, plaintiff supplied the court with a variety of medical records, reports and expert opinions
concerning her injuries, her course of treatment, and her prognosis in terms of permanency.
Applying the Oswin test, the motion judge concluded that plaintiff had demonstrated, by credible, objective
medical evidence, that the injury to her knee was permanent and thus that plaintiff's proofs sufficed for purposes of
the first part of the Oswin analysis. However, he found that the proffered evidence of a serious injury, in terms of the
subjective impact of that injury on plaintiff's life, was insufficient for purposes of the second Oswin prong. He
therefore based the two orders granting the motion and cross-motion for summary judgment and dismissing the
complaint solely on the application of the second part of the Oswin test.
We need not detail the evidence and testimony presented to the motion judge in support of plaintiff's
assertion that she had proven that her injuries were serious. Rather, we note that in the time while this appeal has
been pending, our Supreme Court has held that AICRA does not include a serious impact requirement. See Juarez v.
J.A. Salerno & Sons, Inc.,      N.J.     ,      (2005)(slip op. at 6); DiProspero v. Penn, 183 N.J. 477, 481
(2005); Serrano v. Serrano, 183 N.J. 508, 509-10 (2005). Moreover, we have concluded that the rules established in
these decisions are fully applicable to plaintiff's complaint. See Beltran v. DeLima, 379 N.J. Super. 169, 176-77 (App.
Div. 2005). We therefore reverse the orders before us on appeal granting summary judgment in favor of defendants
and dismissing plaintiff's complaint and we remand this matter to the Law Division for further proceedings
consistent with these Supreme Court decisions.
Reversed and remanded. We do not retain jurisdiction.
The order denying the motion for reconsideration, although dated and apparently signed by the judge on
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a1332-04.opn.html
September 14, 2004, was not filed until October 14, 2004.
(continued)
(continued)
4
A-1332-04T2
December 14, 2005
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