Michigan's Serious Impairment Threshold: When You Can Sue for Pain and Suffering

After a crash in Michigan, no-fault insurance pays many of your medical bills and part of your lost pay, no matter who caused it. Pain and suffering is different. You can sue the at-fault driver for it only if the crash caused a death, a “serious impairment of body function,” or “permanent serious disfigurement” (MCL 500.3135(1)). Without a death or a permanent, serious disfigurement, the question is whether you had a serious impairment. It doesn’t have to be permanent. It must be something others can observe or perceive, affect an important body function (one of great value, significance or consequence to you), and have affected your general ability to live your normal life.

Hurt and not sure where you stand? Get a free case review. Four quick questions, no cost, no obligation.

What is Michigan’s serious impairment threshold?

Michigan’s no-fault system is a trade. Injured people get what the Michigan Supreme Court called “certain and prompt recovery for economic loss” from insurers, without proving anyone was at fault. In exchange, the law limits lawsuits against the driver who caused the crash (McCormick v Carrier, 487 Mich 180 (2010)).

Those insurance payments are personal injury protection (PIP) benefits. Within your policy’s limits and coverage choices, they pay for necessary medical care, part of the income you lose from work in the first three years, and up to $20 a day for household help during that time (MCL 500.3107).

The limit on lawsuits is in MCL 500.3135(1):

A person 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.

Two terms matter:

• Tort liability is the legal duty to pay for harm you caused someone else.
• Noneconomic loss is harm that doesn’t come with a bill. Michigan’s Model Civil Jury Instructions (the standard instructions judges read to jurors, cited as M Civ JI) describe it as loss due to “pain, suffering, inconvenience, physical impairment, physical disfigurement,” plus harms such as mental anguish, fright and shock, and denial of social pleasure and enjoyments (M Civ JI 50.21 and 50.02).

For Michigan residents, the threshold decides one thing: whether you can collect for pain and suffering from the at-fault driver. Your PIP benefits don’t depend on it.

What you can claim, with and without meeting the threshold

If you don’t live in Michigan, the rule is stricter: a nonresident must meet the threshold even to recover economic loss from the at-fault driver (MCL 500.3135(3)(d)).

See Michigan no-fault (PIP) benefits after the 2019 reform for which policy pays, and how Michigan car accident claims work for how the two claims fit together. More guides: our car accident library and our plain-English reference to Michigan injury law.

What counts as a “serious impairment of body function”?

Since the 2019 reform, the statute spells out three requirements, and an impairment has to meet all of them (MCL 500.3135(5)).

An impairment is not the injury itself. As the Michigan Supreme Court explained in McCormick, “while an injury is the actual damage or wound, an impairment generally relates to the effect of that damage.” A broken ankle is an injury. Not being able to walk, climb or lift normally is an impairment.

1. Someone other than you can observe or perceive it

It is objectively manifested, meaning it is observable or perceivable from actual symptoms or conditions by someone other than the injured person. (MCL 500.3135(5)(a))

Your own description of pain isn’t enough by itself. Someone else must be able to observe or perceive actual symptoms or conditions: a doctor’s exam findings, an X-ray, a therapist’s range-of-motion test, a family member who watches you struggle. The Supreme Court has said injured people need evidence of “a physical basis” for their complaints of pain, and that this generally takes medical testimony, though not always (McCormick).

Observations by family can help. In Patrick v Turkelson, 322 Mich App 595 (2018), a side airbag struck a driver’s face and left ear. Hearing tests showed mild hearing loss, though the ringing in her ears (tinnitus) couldn’t be tested directly. Her husband testified that she now spoke too loudly or too softly and misheard their children’s questions. The Court of Appeals held that the tests and his observations were evidence of an impairment others could perceive, and reversed the dismissal of her claim.

2. It affects an important body function

It is an impairment of an important body function, which is a body function of great value, significance, or consequence to the injured person. (MCL 500.3135(5)(b))

This test is personal. As McCormick put it, “what may seem to be a trivial body function for most people may be subjectively important to some, depending on the relationship of that function to the person’s life.” What counts is how much a function, such as walking, gripping, hearing or concentrating, matters in your life. For Rodney McCormick, a truck loader, walking, crouching, climbing and lifting mattered because his job depended on them.

The mind counts too. Michigan’s model jury instruction says: “The operation of the mind and of the nervous system are body functions.” It adds that a mental or emotional injury may be a serious impairment if a physical injury caused it, or if it results in physical symptoms (M Civ JI 36.02).

3. It has affected your general ability to lead your normal life

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. (MCL 500.3135(5)(c))

This is where the details of your own life matter most. The statute requires a “comparison of the injured person’s life before and after the incident,” one person at a time. McCormick made four points that courts still apply:

• Affected, not destroyed. The law “merely requires that a person’s general ability to lead his or her normal life has been affected, not destroyed.”
• Some, not most. There is “no quantitative minimum” for how much of your normal life must be affected.
• Your normal, not someone else’s. A weekend golfer, a parent of toddlers and a warehouse worker each have a different normal.
• Still doing it, but not the same way, can count. Courts look at activities you stopped, and also at whether your ability to do them was affected even though you kept going.

Does the injury have to be permanent?

No. The statute says: “Although temporal considerations may be relevant, there is no temporal requirement for how long an impairment must last” (MCL 500.3135(5)(c)). How long your impairment lasted can be evidence, but there is no minimum. McCormick pointed out that the Legislature required a disfigurement to be “permanent” but didn’t put that word on serious impairment. For cases under the 2019 law, the model jury instruction tells jurors: “An impairment does not have to be permanent in order to be a serious impairment of body function” (M Civ JI 36.01A).

Piccione v Gillette, 327 Mich App 16 (2019), shows how this works. A 3-year-old broke his collarbone in a crash and wore a sling or strap for three to four months. His parents testified that he missed about two weeks of school, needed help with the bathroom, dressing and stairs, and couldn’t ride his bike or play soccer. After three or four months he had physically recovered, and the trial judge dismissed the claim because he was back to his normal life. The Court of Appeals reversed. Because a serious impairment doesn’t have to be permanent, it said, the fact that his lasted three or four months “has no bearing on the question at hand,” and a jury could find that his general ability to lead his normal life had been affected. (The court applied McCormick shortly before the 2019 amendment.)

Healing later doesn’t erase the claim, either. If a jury finds you had a serious impairment that has since ended, the model instruction says that fact “will not relieve defendant from liability for any of the noneconomic loss damages” the negligence caused (M Civ JI 36.01B).

What did McCormick v Carrier decide, and how does the 2019 law relate to it?

The history helps you spot outdated advice. The first three rows are as McCormick describes them.

To codify a court decision is to write its rule into the statute itself. The McCormick test now sits in the text of MCL 500.3135(5).

Rodney McCormick loaded trucks at a General Motors plant. A coworker knocked him over with a truck and drove over his left ankle, breaking it. After two surgeries and months of physical therapy, he went back to work 19 months later, in a different job at the same pay. The trial court dismissed his claim because he had recovered relatively well, and the Court of Appeals agreed. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that he met the threshold as a matter of law (a judge could decide it because no material facts were in dispute). Work was the center of his normal life, and he couldn’t do his job for at least 14 months.

What this means for you: if someone tells you your injury must be permanent, the statute says otherwise. If someone says your whole life must have changed course, that was the Kreiner test, and McCormick overruled it.

What evidence helps prove a serious impairment?

Evidence comes in two kinds: proof of what’s wrong with your body, and proof of how your life changed. McCormick’s record had both: X-rays, two surgeries, an MRI and a work-capacity evaluation finding he couldn’t stoop, crouch, climb or do the heavy lifting his job required, plus his testimony about 60-hour work weeks, fishing and golf.

Medical proof someone else can perceive

• Emergency room and doctor records from the days after the crash
• Imaging and test results, such as X-rays, MRIs or hearing tests
• Surgery, physical therapy and follow-up notes
• Work restrictions and functional capacity evaluations (tests of what physical work you can do)
• Your doctor’s opinion on what the injury limits, and for how long

Proof of your life before and after

• What a normal week looked like before the crash: work hours and duties, childcare, housework, hobbies, sports, travel
• Work records showing time missed, light duty or a changed job
• Help you’ve needed since: dressing, bathing, driving, lifting a child, climbing stairs
• Statements from family, friends and coworkers who have seen the difference, like the husband’s testimony in Patrick
• A simple dated journal of pain, sleep, missed events and tasks you couldn’t do

A special rule for head injuries

A closed-head injury is a hard blow to the head where nothing penetrated the skull (MedlinePlus). For these injuries, if a licensed physician (MD or DO) “who regularly diagnoses or treats closed-head injuries testifies under oath that there may be a serious neurological injury,” that creates a question of fact for the jury (MCL 500.3135(2)(a)(ii)). The threshold then goes to the jury instead of being decided by the judge. If you hit your head in the crash, make sure your doctors know, and keep the follow-up visits they recommend.

Wondering whether your injury meets the threshold? Get a free case review, or compare Michigan injury lawyers.

Who decides whether you meet the threshold: the judge or the jury?

It depends on whether the facts about your injuries are really in dispute (MCL 500.3135(2)(a)).

• The judge decides if there’s no factual dispute about “the nature and extent of the person’s injuries,” or if there is one but it isn’t material. McCormick described a material fact as one that is “significant or essential to the issue or matter at hand.”
• The jury decides if there’s a material dispute about the nature and extent of your injuries. As the Court of Appeals put it in Patrick, the threshold question then “is for the jury and may not be decided as a matter of law.”
• Closed-head injuries go to the jury with the doctor’s testimony described above.

The defense can ask the judge to decide the threshold before trial with a motion for summary disposition: a request to rule without a trial because no important facts are genuinely disputed. In McCormick, Patrick and Piccione, the defense filed that motion, the trial judge granted it, and a higher court reversed. Not every appeal ends that way; each case turns on its facts.

What about disfigurement or a death?

Permanent serious disfigurement. The statute doesn’t define it. When a jury decides it, jurors are told to give the words their ordinary meaning and to decide whether there is a disfigurement and, if so, whether it is “both serious and permanent” (M Civ JI 36.03). Unlike an impairment, it must be permanent. Photos over time and your doctors’ views on whether scars will fade speak to that.

A death. A death meets the threshold. The claim is brought by the personal representative of the person’s estate (the person appointed to handle the estate) under Michigan’s wrongful death law (MCL 600.2922). See how wrongful death claims work.

What else can stop or reduce a pain-and-suffering claim?

Meeting the threshold opens the door. You still have to prove the rest of the claim: that the other driver was negligent (careless), and that this negligence caused your injuries (M Civ JI 36.06). See how causation is proved in injury cases.

Three more limits apply:

• Your share of the fault. Michigan uses comparative fault: your damages are reduced by your percentage of fault. If you’re more than 50% at fault, you can’t recover pain-and-suffering damages at all, though a Michigan resident’s economic-loss claim is only reduced (MCL 500.3135(2)(b); M Civ JI 36.06). See how comparative fault works in Michigan.
• Driving your own uninsured vehicle. If you were driving your own vehicle without the required no-fault insurance on it, you can’t recover pain-and-suffering damages (MCL 500.3135(2)(c)).
• The deadline. Generally three years from the injury to file suit (MCL 600.5805(2)). See every Michigan injury deadline in one place.

If your injuries meet the threshold, your spouse may also have a claim for loss of consortium (the loss of your companionship and help), which the no-fault law didn’t abolish (M Civ JI 36.06, comment).

What to do next

1. Keep getting care, and describe your limits. Follow your treatment plan, and tell every provider what you can’t do at work, at home and for fun, not just where it hurts. Their notes are how someone other than you perceives the impairment.
2. Build a before-and-after file. Write down what a normal week looked like before the crash. Add dated notes, photos, work records and the names of people who have seen the change.
3. Protect your PIP claim. If your no-fault insurer hasn’t paid benefits yet, give it written notice of your injury within one year of the crash. The notice must give the claimant’s name and address and state, in ordinary language, the injured person’s name and the time, place and nature of the injury (MCL 500.3145). If benefits were denied or cut off, see what to do when a Michigan PIP claim is denied.
4. Get a lawyer’s read before you sign anything. A lawyer can check your records against the three-part test and track your deadlines. Get a free case review or compare Michigan injury lawyers, and get the fee in writing (how injury lawyers are paid).

What waiting can cost

• Your right to sue. The three-year clock in MCL 600.5805(2) runs from the injury, not from the end of your treatment.
• PIP benefits. Without written notice or a payment within one year of the crash, a lawsuit for PIP benefits can be barred. Even with notice, you generally can’t recover PIP losses incurred more than a year before you sue (MCL 500.3145).
• Your “before” picture. The threshold compares your life before and after the crash. Notes made now are stronger than memories pieced together a year later.
• A quick release. Settling early and signing a release usually ends the claim, even if the injury turns out to be worse than you thought.

What a good outcome looks like

PIP pays your medical bills and part of your lost income while you heal. Your records show, in ways someone else can check, what the injury did to your body and to your normal life. If you meet the threshold and the other driver was at fault, the at-fault driver’s liability insurance pays for your pain and suffering and for losses PIP didn’t cover, within that driver’s policy limits. And you make each decision with the facts in view and a lawyer whose fee you understood from the start.

Updated September 24, 2026

This guide is general information, not legal advice, and laws change. For advice about your situation, talk to a lawyer licensed in your state. Reading this page or contacting us does not create an attorney-client relationship.