Nunez v Zhagui
2009 NY Slip Op 02295 [60 AD3d 559]
March 26, 2009
Appellate Division, First Department
Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431.
As corrected through Wednesday, May 6, 2009


Hector Nunez, Respondent,
v
Luis R. Zhagui, Appellant.

[*1] Baker, McEvoy, Morrissey & Moskovits, P.C., New York (Holly E. Peck and Stacy R. Seldin of counsel), for appellant.

Friedman & Moses, LLP, Garden City (Lisa M. Comeau of counsel), for respondent.

Order, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Patricia Anne Williams, J.), entered August 8, 2008, which, insofar as appealed from, denied defendant's motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

After defendant's showing of prima facie entitlement to summary judgment, the court properly found that plaintiff raised a triable issue of fact through his treating doctor's affirmation, which, when considered in connection with MRIs taken within weeks of the accident, found objective medical findings of range of motion limitations contemporaneous with the accident and upon recent examination (see Thompson v Abbasi, 15 AD3d 95, 97 [2005]). The existence of a serious injury is also supported by the affirmed report of the orthopedic surgeon who performed surgery on plaintiff's left knee 2½ years after the accident, and found, among other things, a crack on the lateral facet of the patella (see Morris v Cisse, 58 AD3d 455 [2009]).

We have considered defendant's remaining contentions and find them unavailing. Concur—Andrias, J.P., Gonzalez, Buckley and Acosta, JJ.