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[*2]Civil Court of the City of New York, Queens County, May 14, 2007
APPEARANCES OF COUNSEL
Cohen & Jaffe, Lake Success (Richard S. Jaffe and Stefan Belinfanti of counsel), for plaintiff. Shapiro, Beilly, Rosenberg, Aronowitz, Levy & Fox, LLP, New York City (Shelly Hefefz of counsel), for defendant.
OPINION OF THE COURT
Diane A. Lebedeff, J.
Currently, torrents of no-fault litigation deluge New York courts and no-fault requests for accelerated judgment swell our motion calendars.[FN1] Adding to the turmoil is that no-fault [*3]summary judgment motions pose undeniable difficulties, in large part, because traditional summary judgment formulations give poor guidance for their ready resolution.
Building a more workable approach to no-fault summary judgment motions requires recognition that the bulk of no-fault summary judgment issues are decided on the sufficiency of the papers and arguments of law regarding specific no-fault technicalities, as well as explicit
identification of no-fault variations of traditional summary judgment precepts. [FN2] Using that foundation, construction of a series of relevant inquiries produces the following four-step analysis for no-fault summary judgment motions: (1) a threshold review of the three requisite showings of a no-fault plaintiff's prima facie case; (2) an assessment of the insurer's tendered proof of issuance and service of its response, if any; (3) a regulatory compliance review of any properly served insurer response, weighing a response's timeliness, form and substance; and (4), finally, a search for triable issues of fact in relation to any properly preserved, otherwise precludable defenses, as well as of defenses independent of the response process. This decision concentrates on these four areas of inquiry, with amplification and qualifications footnoted.
This same analysis is adaptable to identification of trial issues in no-fault cases and

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