Contact Chiropractic, P.C. v New York City Tr. Auth., 2016 NY Slip Op 00325 (2d Dept. 2016)
“The Appellate Term correctly determined that an action by an injured claimant, or his or her assignee, to recover first-party no-fault benefits from a defendant who is self-insured, is subject to a six-year statute of limitations, since the claim is essentially contractual, as opposed to statutory, in nature”
Congratulations to my friend Aaron J. Perretta on his victory here. Given the brevity of the opinion, I am at a loss to understand why leave was granted to Appellant to hear this case,
2 Responses
[Note: There’s a weird formatting problem so everything is appearing to me in caps for some reason]
The prior appeal in the 1st Dept was poorly done. The Plaintiff conceded that no-fault was statutory for transit and did not realize the implications. The 2d Dept recognized there are tons of contractual relationships floating around a self-insured MTA vehicle. Therefore, the 2d Dept reached a different result.
No, there is no contract at issue with an MTA vehicle. However, the Second Department started out on the issue with a case against Elrac, where there was an actual contract between the vehicle’s driver and Elrac. Starting from that premise, they decided that every self-insurer is subject to the same standard. For the First Department, it was a Transit Authority case that was its first impression, and so they started out from the statutory premise.