No-show failed the Alrof test

Hertz did not prove its IME or EUO no-show defense well enough to obtain summary judgment. But the provider did not keep its judgment either. That split result is the useful part of Great Health Care Chiropractic v Hertz: defeating the other side’s motion and proving your own are different tasks.

Historical note — Last reviewed: September 2026. This December 2014 decision rejected both parties’ requests for summary judgment on different grounds; the IME case directory connects its separate mailing and nonappearance issues with later proof decisions, including Gaines (2025).

Neither side established a right to judgment

In Great Health Care Chiropractic, P.C. v Hertz Co., 46 Misc 3d 130(A), decided December 17, 2014, the Appellate Term, Second Department, reversed the provider’s judgment and denied its summary-judgment motion. Hertz had established timely mailing of its denial; the provider had not shown that the denial was conclusory, vague or meritless as a matter of law.

Hertz’s own cross motion still failed. Its submissions did not establish proper mailing procedures for the IME appointment notices. Separately, it lacked proof from someone with personal knowledge of the assignor’s EUO nonappearance. The court did not combine those defects into one finding about one examination.

The result left the parties without summary judgment. It was not a final determination that the bills must be paid, nor a dismissal based on a proven no-show. Reading only the original note’s no-show excerpt would miss the part in which the insurer successfully challenged the provider’s judgment.

What the “Alrof test” shorthand means here

The title refers to Alrof, Inc. v Safeco National, one of the authorities cited for the EUO proof problem. It is historical shorthand, not a regulation called the Alrof test or a fixed form that every insurer must use.

The useful distinction is between an assertion and its evidentiary basis. A denial can say that a person missed an examination. That statement identifies the defense; it does not, standing alone, establish how the appointment was noticed or how a witness knows the person was absent. The opinion evaluates those questions separately.

Compare Radiology Today’s accepted proof from the medical professionals and East 75th Street’s scheduling-company and examiner affidavits. Those insurers obtained summary judgment. The comparison is valuable because it shows the type of proof accepted in identified records, not because every statement carrying a particular job title must be accepted.

Follow each document to the fact it proves

A practical way to review this note is to put the examination notices, attendance proof and denial into separate groups.

An appointment notice identifies the requested examination. Mailing evidence addresses whether it was sent through a sufficiently established practice or by an identified act of mailing. Attendance evidence addresses what happened at the appointment. Denial evidence addresses the insurer’s later handling of the claim. A witness may know more than one part of that sequence, but that knowledge needs an explanation.

That separation also helps a provider identify the actual point of opposition. If the claimed defect concerns the IME vendor’s mailing practices, arguing only about a later EUO does not answer it. If the missing proof concerns attendance, repeating that a scheduling letter exists does not supply the missing observation.

For this case, the published opinion is enough to identify the failures. It does not reproduce every affidavit, and this note does not invent their missing language. Anyone comparing a new file should read its actual submissions, not infer that Hertz’s problem was a particular omitted sentence.

A later affirmation is not automatically worthless

The archive’s 2026 discussion of GC Chiropractic provides a limited EUO comparison. In GC Chiropractic v State Farm, 2025 NY Slip Op 51982(U), the Appellate Term accepted an attorney’s affirmation on renewal despite a roughly three-year interval. That ruling does not make personal knowledge unnecessary; it rejects treating the interval as an automatic reason to disbelieve that affirmation.

That distinction keeps this 2014 note useful. The problem described in Great Health Care was missing competent proof of EUO nonappearance. It was not a universal rule that proof signed after the appointment is unusable. Nor should an EUO ruling be silently converted into a rule about every IME doctor’s report.

Preserve the issue as well as the evidence

The motion record matters on both sides. Preferred Ortho’s apartment-number objection was not considered when raised for the first time on appeal. That later note is a useful companion to a case in which the appellate court did address the sufficiency of the submissions.

The lesson is specific: identify the challenged document, the fact it does or does not establish, and where the argument was made below. A list of no-show citations cannot replace that work.

For a successful comparison involving three kinds of proof, see Quality Psychological and Arco Medical. For a First Department decision accepting a physician and employee’s affidavits, see American Transit v Lucas. These cases make the archive a set of contrasting records, not a promise that either side always wins.

Connect to the Encyclopedia

The IME no-show case directory connects notice, attendance, timing and procedural decisions:

• Radiology Today: who supplied the mailing and nonappearance evidence
• East 75th Street: the Nassau County examination-notice record
• Lucas: physician and employee evidence in the First Department
• Quality Psychological and Arco: proof subjects, not an affidavit headcount
• Preferred Ortho: an address objection first raised on appeal
• GC Chiropractic (2025): a later EUO affirmation and the time-lapse objection

For review of a particular no-fault claim or motion record, contact the Law Office of Jason Tenenbaum, P.C. and read about our no-fault defense practice.