The argument arrives early and it arrives as a conclusion. The imaging was unremarkable, so there is nothing to compensate. Everything after that is treated as the claimant’s say-so.
It is an effective argument because it sounds like a finding rather than a position. It is a position, and Nevada’s rules of evidence do not support the step it takes.
What follows is where Nevada actually locates the question, and what the argument is doing when it is made.
Key Takeaways
- No Nevada rule of evidence makes any single study the test for whether an injury exists.
- Under NRS 50.285 an expert’s opinion may rest on facts or data “of a type reasonably relied upon by experts” in the field, and those facts “need not be admissible in evidence.”
- Under NRS 50.295 an opinion is “not objectionable because it embraces an ultimate issue to be decided by the trier of fact.”
- So the question Nevada asks is what experts in the field reasonably rely on — not whether one particular result was unremarkable.
- The imaging argument is a causation argument presented as a factual one, and it is answered as a causation argument.
- Nothing on this page is a statement about what imaging does or does not detect, which is a clinical matter rather than a legal one.
What the Argument Actually Claims
Set out in full, the position runs in three steps. A study was performed. It did not show a particular finding. Therefore no compensable injury occurred.
The first two steps are records of what happened. The third is an inference, and it is the whole of the argument. Whether that inference holds is not a question about the study. It is a question about what Nevada requires to establish an injury, and that is answered by the rules of evidence rather than by the radiology.
This page takes no position on what any kind of imaging is capable of showing. That is a clinical question for clinicians, and the point here does not depend on it.
Where Nevada Locates the Question
Nevada’s answer is in how it treats the basis of an expert opinion.
Under NRS 50.285, the facts or data on which an expert bases an opinion “may be those perceived by or made known to the expert at or before the hearing.” The section then adds the provision that matters here: “If of a type reasonably relied upon by experts in forming opinions or inferences upon the subject, the facts or data need not be admissible in evidence.”
Read that against the argument. The statute does not ask whether a specific test produced a specific result. It asks whether the material the opinion rests on is of a type experts in that field reasonably rely on. That is a question about professional practice, and it is answered by the field rather than by the party disputing the claim.
The consequence is that an opinion grounded in examination, reported history, functional assessment and observation over time is not defective for want of a particular study. It is an opinion resting on material of the type the field uses, which is what the statute addresses.
An Opinion May Address the Question in Dispute
A second provision closes off a related objection.
NRS 50.295 provides that testimony in the form of an opinion or inference otherwise admissible “is not objectionable because it embraces an ultimate issue to be decided by the trier of fact.”
So an opinion is not excluded merely because it goes to the very thing in dispute. The suggestion that only a scan can speak to whether an injury occurred, and that an expert addressing it directly is overreaching, does not survive the section.
What the Argument Is Really Doing
Seen properly, the imaging point is not a factual observation at all. It is a causation argument wearing a factual costume.
The real contention is that whatever the claimant is experiencing has some other explanation — that it predates the collision, arises from something unrelated, or is overstated. Framed that way it is a normal contested issue, decided on the evidence like any other.
Framed as “the scan was normal,” it tries to do something different: to remove the issue from the evidence altogether and settle it with a single document. The first step in answering it is to put it back where it belongs.
Two features of these claims make that worth doing deliberately. The argument is usually made early, before the record is complete, so it is at its most persuasive when there is least to answer it with. And it is made in a register that invites the claimant to argue about the test, which is the one ground on which the argument is strongest.
What Carries the Claim Instead
The answer is the same as it is for any injury whose effects outlast its visible signs: a record built from several sources that agree with each other.
The contemporaneous medical sequence across every provider involved. Expert evidence explaining the course and what is expected of it. Accounts from people who knew the claimant beforehand and can describe the change, which Nevada’s rules admit for reasons of their own. How that evidence is assembled, and why each kind carries what it carries, is set out on our Nevada brain injury page.
What all of that has in common is that none of it is a single document. That is the structural answer to an argument built on one.
On the Word “Settlements”
People searching this phrase are usually asking what a claim like this resolves for, and the honest answer is that no figure can responsibly be offered. Published averages describe other people’s claims under other states’ rules, and a claim with contested causation is defined by the dispute rather than by any typical outcome.
What can be said is that the imaging argument is one of the variables, and that its force depends almost entirely on what else the record contains. Resolving it early, by building the rest, is what changes the position.
Talk to a Nevada Brain Injury Lawyer
Vaksman Khalfin, PC acts for injured people across Nevada from the firm’s Las Vegas office at 10161 Park Run Drive, Suite 150. The first consultation is free, and injury claims are handled on a contingency-fee basis: there is no upfront cost, attorney’s fees are owed only out of a recovery, and fees and case costs are separate items set out in the written agreement. Wider material sits in the Nevada personal injury guides.
Reviewed by Robert B. Vaksman, Partner, Vaksman Khalfin, PC (admitted in Nevada). Last reviewed: 10/26/2026
Frequently Asked Questions
No Nevada rule of evidence makes any single study the test for whether an injury exists. The claim is established on the evidence as a whole, and an unremarkable result is one item within it rather than a determination.
Nevada's evidence rules do not frame the question that way. NRS 50.285 asks whether the facts an expert relies on are of a type reasonably relied upon by experts in the field, which is a question about professional practice rather than about one result.
Under NRS 50.285, facts or data perceived by or made known to the expert at or before the hearing, and where those are of a type reasonably relied upon in the field, they need not themselves be admissible in evidence.
Yes. NRS 50.295 provides that an otherwise admissible opinion is not objectionable because it embraces an ultimate issue to be decided by the trier of fact.
A record assembled from sources that corroborate one another: the contemporaneous medical sequence, expert evidence on the course and prognosis, and accounts from those who knew the claimant before. No single document does the work.
Because it converts a contested causation question into something that looks settled, and because it is usually raised early, when the rest of the record is least developed.
The word is an initial classification rather than a description of consequences, and it is not the legal question. What a claim turns on is the effect established by the evidence, not the label attached at the outset.
No figure can responsibly be given. Published averages describe claims brought elsewhere under other rules, and a claim with contested causation is shaped by that dispute rather than by any typical outcome.
