Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1998

Publication Information

24 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 1055 (1998)

Abstract

The Minnesota No-Fault Automobile Insurance Act was intended to ensure the “prompt payment of specific basic economic loss benefits to victims of automobile accidents without regard to whose fault caused the accident,” to prevent overcompensation of less seriously injured people by the interposition of tort thresholds, and to encourage appropriate medical and rehabilitation treatment by assuring prompt payment for that treatment. It seems clear that at least some of the initial promise of the Act has not been fulfilled. Payment of basic economic loss benefits, which the legislature intended to be paid promptly, has become bogged down in a quagmire of litigation as lawyers have wrestled with the terms and conditions of payment of those benefits. This Article analyzes the right to recover disability and income loss benefits under the Act. After explaining the statutory framework that governs the payment of basic economic loss benefits, the article explains the statutory evolution of the disability and income loss statute, analyzes the decisions construing it, and attempts to reconcile some apparently irreconcilable cases involving claims for those benefits.

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