New Jersey Verbal Threshold Statute | Labarbara, J vs. Oelfke.

Submitted by New Jersey Civil Lawyer, Jeffrey Hark

Appellate Division  division June 11, 2014.  The issue in this case is the ability of a plaintiff  to overcome verbal threshold statute in New Jersey in order to be able to recover financially for non-economic damages in a motor vehicle crash case.

The only evidence the plaintiff, injured person had, in the form of medical evidence was the doctors observations of intermittent muscle spasm on an inconsistent basis.  The court, after reviewing the long-standing case law on the need of a plaintiff injured party to provide objective clinical medical evidence, ruled that muscle spasm is enough to overcome the verbal threshold statute only if it is on a long-standing and consistent found in the plaintiffs medical evidence by the treating doctor.

Intermittent complaints by the plaintiff of such condition is not acceptable when are unsupported by the medical evidence and the complaints are inconsistent and intermittent. As a result the court affirmed the trial judges granting of the defendants motion to dismiss the case.