Plaintiff appeals from an order of the Civil Court, Bronx County (Sharon A.M. Aarons, J.), entered August 1, 2005, which granted defendants' motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint and denied his motion for summary judgment.

PER CURIAM:

Order (Sharon A.M. Aarons, J.), entered August 1, 2005, modified to deny defendants' motion for summary judgment dismissal of plaintiff's claim for property damage and to reinstate plaintiff's property damage claim, and as modified, affirmed, without costs.

Plaintiff's personal injury claim was properly dismissed for lack of proof of a serious injury (see Insurance Law 5102[d]). Among other deficiencies, the unexplained cessation of treatment five years prior to the summary judgment motions is fatal to plaintiff's serious injury claim based upon bulging spinal discs (see Pommells v. Perez, 4 NY3d 566 [2005]; Agramonte v. Marvin, 22 AD3d 322 [2005]). Nor do plaintiff's unsubstantiated statements suffice to raise an issue of fact as to whether he was unable to perform substantially all of his customary daily activities for 90 of the 180 days following the accident (see Quezada v. Luque, 27 AD3d 305 [2006]). The alleged dental "fracture," which was untreated and unsubstantiated by any medical evidence, constitutes the type of de minimus injury that the serious injury requirement was designed to eliminate as a basis for recovery (see Sanchez v. Romano, 292 AD2d 202 [2002]).

However, the fact that plaintiff failed to demonstrate that he sustained a serious injury within the meaning of Insurance Law § 5102(d) did not warrant the dismissal of his separate claim for property damage nor render moot the question of liability as it pertains to such claim. Thus, we reinstate plaintiff's property damage claim and remand for further proceedings.

This constitutes the decision and order of the court.
Decision Date: September 20, 2006