Pain and Suffering After a Michigan Car Accident: The Serious Impairment Threshold

Your own insurer may be paying the medical bills. No one has paid for what doesn’t come with a receipt: the months you couldn’t lift your child, sleep through the night, or get through a shift without help. Michigan lets you sue the at-fault driver for that loss, but only if your injury clears a legal bar called the tort threshold.

Vahdat Weisman Law auto accident attorneys represent people hurt in crashes across Michigan, including in pain and suffering claims against the driver who caused the crash. Call (734) 469-4994 for a free consultation. No attorney fee unless we recover for you.

Can You Sue for Pain and Suffering in Michigan?

Yes, if the injury qualifies. Michigan’s no-fault system pays personal protection insurance (PIP) benefits regardless of fault, but in exchange it limits lawsuits. The limit on pain and suffering, which the law calls noneconomic loss, is written this way: a driver “remains subject to tort liability for noneconomic loss caused by his or her ownership, maintenance, or use of a motor vehicle only if the injured person has suffered death, serious impairment of body function, or permanent serious disfigurement” (MCL 500.3135(1)).

Death meets the threshold on its own terms. Permanent serious disfigurement, such as significant scarring, is a separate path covered on our scarring and disfigurement page. Most other claims turn on the middle phrase, serious impairment of body function.

The threshold applies only to pain and suffering. Some economic losses can be pursued against the at-fault driver whether or not your injury clears it, as explained further down.

What “Serious Impairment of Body Function” Means

Since 2019, the statute has defined it. The Legislature adopted the test from McCormick v. Carrier, 487 Mich 180 (2010), the Michigan Supreme Court decision that overruled the far stricter approach of Kreiner v. Fischer, 471 Mich 109 (2004). Under MCL 500.3135(5), the impairment must satisfy all three of these requirements:

• (a) “It is objectively manifested, meaning it is observable or perceivable from actual symptoms or conditions by someone other than the injured person.”
• (b) “It is an impairment of an important body function, which is a body function of great value, significance, or consequence to the injured person.”
• (c) “It affects the injured person’s general ability to lead his or her normal life, meaning it has had an influence on some of the person’s capacity to live in his or her normal manner of living.”

Paragraph (c) goes on to say that “there is no temporal requirement for how long an impairment must last,” and that the question is decided case by case and “requires comparison of the injured person’s life before and after the incident.”

The test is personal. A dominant hand matters more to a carpenter, and the ability to sit for hours matters more to a long-haul driver. Courts look at what the impairment did to the person in front of them.

Does Your Injury Have to Show Up on an MRI?

Not necessarily, but pain alone is not enough. “Mere subjective complaints of pain and suffering are insufficient to show impairment” (Patrick v Turkelson, 322 Mich App 595, 607 (2018)). The law requires a physical basis for the pain, and medical testimony is generally, though not always, how that basis is shown (Patrick; McCormick).

The focus is on the impairment, not just the injury. A diagnosis on a chart does not satisfy the test by itself if nothing shows how it limited what your body could do. Useful proof tends to come from:

• examination findings such as reduced range of motion, weakness, or nerve deficits
• imaging or nerve studies that line up with the symptoms
• physician-ordered restrictions on lifting, driving, or work
• testimony from family, friends, or coworkers who saw the struggle with tasks that used to be routine

That is why soft-tissue injuries, whiplash, and disc problems are not ruled out as a category. In each case, the question is whether someone else observed and documented the impairment of function. Our herniated disc and back injury page goes into the medical proof for spinal injuries.

Brain injuries have their own rule. For a closed-head injury, “a question of fact for the jury is created if a licensed allopathic or osteopathic physician who regularly diagnoses or treats closed-head injuries testifies under oath that there may be a serious neurological injury” (MCL 500.3135(2)(a)(ii)).

Do You Need Surgery or a Permanent Injury?

No. Nothing in the statute requires surgery, and permanence is required only for disfigurement, not for serious impairment.

Piccione v. Gillette, 327 Mich App 16 (2019), shows how this works. A three-year-old broke his collarbone and recovered in three to four months. The trial court dismissed the case. The Court of Appeals reversed, noting missed school, inability to use play equipment, needing help with toileting, dressing, and stairs, and disrupted sleep, and holding that a serious impairment “does not have to be permanent.” A jury was entitled to decide the question (opinion).

Surgery, a long recovery, or a lasting restriction still count as evidence, but they aren’t entry requirements.

Does It Matter That You Went Back to Work?

It is part of the picture, not the end of it. Under McCormick, your general ability to lead a normal life must be “affected, not destroyed,” and the statute asks only whether the impairment influenced “some of” your capacity to live as you did before. The plaintiff in McCormick was a truck loader with a fractured leg who had two surgeries and did not return to full-time work until about 19 months after the crash. The Court did not treat his eventual return as defeating the claim.

A return to work does not answer whether the job was done the same way, whether coworkers covered tasks, or what happened outside work: sleep, parenting, household chores, exercise, hobbies, intimacy, travel. The before-and-after comparison reaches all of it. A short written record of what you could not do, and when you resumed each activity, is the kind of evidence comparison relies on.

If You Had Back or Neck Problems Before the Crash

A preexisting condition does not bar the claim. You may recover if the crash aggravated a condition you already had (Fisher v Blankenship, 286 Mich App 54 (2009)). You do have to show a causal link between the crash and the worsening (Wilkinson v Lee, 463 Mich 388 (2000)).

Earlier treatment records will be part of the case and can help: they show the baseline, and the change after the crash shows the impairment. In a lawsuit, the defense can also ask the court to order an examination by a doctor it chooses (MCR 2.311). That is a different process from the PIP exam described on our insurance medical exams and benefit cutoffs page.

Who Decides Whether Your Injury Qualifies?

Sometimes the judge, sometimes the jury. The court decides the threshold as a question of law when “there is no factual dispute concerning the nature and extent of the person’s injuries,” or when a dispute exists but “is not material to the determination” (MCL 500.3135(2)(a)). Many threshold disputes are argued on a defense motion for summary disposition, before trial.

When the evidence about your injuries genuinely conflicts on a material point, as in Piccione, the case goes to a jury.

What If You Were Partly at Fault?

Pain and suffering is still recoverable at 50 percent fault or less, reduced by that share. “Damages must be assessed based on comparative fault, except that damages must not be assessed in favor of a party who is more than 50% at fault” (MCL 500.3135(2)(b)). So if a jury finds you 30 percent at fault, your noneconomic award is reduced by 30 percent.

Above 50 percent, the bar applies to noneconomic damages. Economic damages are reduced by the same percentage rather than eliminated (MCL 600.2959).

One more rule can decide a case. If you were driving your own vehicle without the insurance Michigan requires, damages “must not be assessed” in your favor (MCL 500.3135(2)(c)).

Losses the Threshold Does Not Control

Even if an injury does not meet the threshold, the at-fault driver can still be liable for certain economic losses (MCL 500.3135(3)):

• Excess medical and wage loss. Allowable expenses, work loss, and survivor’s loss “in excess of any applicable limit under section 3107c or the daily, monthly, and 3-year limitations” in the PIP statutes, including future losses (MCL 500.3135(3)(c)). If your PIP wage benefits stopped at the three-year mark or the monthly cap, see our PIP wage loss benefits page.
• Vehicle damage. Up to $3,000 in uninsured vehicle damage for crashes after July 1, 2020, through the mini-tort claim (MCL 500.3135(3)(e)).

How Long Do You Have to File?

Generally, three years from the crash. The limitations period is “3 years after the time of the death or injury for all actions to recover damages for the death of a person or for injury to a person or property” (MCL 600.5805(2)).

A PIP claim against your own insurer runs on separate, shorter clocks, including a one-year notice rule and a one-year-back limit on recovery (MCL 500.3145).

Why Choose Vahdat Weisman Law?

A threshold case is built from medical findings, work and activity restrictions, and witnesses who saw the change in your daily life and the life you had before the crash. We gather that record, address preexisting-condition and comparative-fault defenses directly, and pursue excess economic losses alongside the pain and suffering claim.

From our Livonia office, we represent injured people and their families throughout Michigan. Founding partners Kara E. Weisman and Jordan S. Vahdat have each been honored as Super Lawyers Rising Stars. Our attorneys are members of the State Bar of Michigan and active in the Michigan Association for Justice. We advance case costs, we work in English and Spanish, and we are available 24/7.

Frequently Asked Questions

• My doctor says it’s a soft-tissue injury. Can that be enough? It can be. The statute does not exclude any category of injury; it asks whether an important body function was impaired in a way someone else could observe or perceive. Examination findings, physician-ordered restrictions, and testimony about what you could no longer do support a soft-tissue claim.
• I’m mostly healed now. Did I still have a serious impairment? Possibly. There is no minimum duration (MCL 500.3135(5)(c)), and in Piccione, a three- to four-month recovery still went to a jury. The question is what the impairment did to your life while it lasted, compared with your life before the crash.
• Who actually pays if I win? In most cases, the at-fault driver’s bodily injury liability coverage pays a judgment or settlement, up to the policy limits. If that coverage is too small, your own underinsured motorist coverage may apply, depending on your policy.

About the Author

Jordan S. Vahdat is a founding partner of Vahdat Weisman Law in Livonia and handles negligence, premises liability, auto accident, and insurance dispute cases. He has been admitted to all Michigan state courts since 2014, practices in the Eastern District of Michigan, and has served as a case evaluator for the Washtenaw Circuit Trial Court and the 15th District Court since 2020. He is fluent in Spanish.

Talk to a Michigan Car Accident Lawyer

If you were hurt in a crash and want to know whether your injury meets Michigan’s threshold, call Vahdat Weisman Law at (734) 469-4994 or contact us online for a free consultation. Available 24/7, serving all of Michigan, with Spanish-speaking staff.

Dedicated to Justice. Devoted to You. Winning for Your Future.

Reviewed by Jordan S. Vahdat, Vahdat Weisman Law. Last reviewed October 2026.

This information is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Every case is unique, and prior results do not guarantee future success.