Skin injuries are “threshold” wounds unless they involve nerve damage, meaning payout limitations apply under NSW motor accident laws, a court has ruled.

The decision settles a case brought by the estate of Summer Abawi, a woman who suffered injuries including cuts to her wrists in a 2017 car accident.

After Ms Abawi died of unrelated causes in 2021, her estate pursued a claim against Allianz, the compulsory third party insurer for the at-fault vehicle in the 2017 crash. 

A medical assessor had found Ms Abawi’s wrist injuries were soft tissue wounds – known as minor or threshold injuries – for which damages claims cannot be made. 

But a review panel rejected this, saying skin is an organ. In a subsequent judicial review, the Supreme Court of NSW confirmed the panel’s finding. 

But this has now been overturned by the state’s Appeal Court. 

NSW’s Motor Accident Injuries Act states a soft tissue wound is “an injury to tissue that connects, supports or surrounds other structures or organs of the body (such as muscles, tendons, ligaments, menisci, cartilage, fascia, fibrous tissues, fat, blood vessels and synovial membranes), but not an injury to nerves or a complete or partial rupture of tendons, ligaments, menisci or cartilage”. 

The earlier rulings found skin – an organ that is not listed above – did not meet the definition. 

But the Appeal Court says skin has the “significant and characteristic feature” of performing soft tissue functions described in the injuries act – supporting and surrounding other parts. 

“If the definition is understood to mean tissue performing certain functions with respect to other structures or other organs, then it is clear that both the structures and the organs referred to may themselves be tissue,” Justice Jeremy Kirk wrote in a ruling delivered earlier this month. 

“The natural reading of the text then is that organs are capable of being soft tissue within the meaning of the definition.” 

In a summary of the decision, Moray & Agnew lawyers Erin Woodward and Freya Taylor say it “provides a clearer interpretation of the term soft tissue injury and importantly confirms that injuries to the skin are threshold injuries, unless there is involvement of the nerves. 

“There is still scope for some significant skin injuries to fall outside the meaning of soft tissue ... when those injuries involve injury to the nerves.” 

See the Appeal Court ruling here.