Loss of Consortium
December 20, 2022
When a person has been hurt or died due to a defendant’s negligence, that person’s spouse frequently brings a loss of consortium claim as a stand-alone action. Loss of consortium refers to the loss of the benefits of a marital relationship, including—but not limited to—affection, companionship, emotional support, and intimacy resulting from a loved one’s injury or death.
These are just a few examples of how a marriage may be impacted and give rise to a loss of consortium claim in Atlanta, Georgia. If your relationship has been significantly affected, an experienced Atlanta personal injury attorney can evaluate your situation and determine whether you have a valid claim.
What Does “Consortium” Mean in Marriage?
While the loss of a loved one is one of life’s greatest tragedies, serious injuries, permanent disabilities, and emotional trauma can also profoundly affect a family. Other situations that might cause a person to experience intense sadness include losing their mental stability and having a permanent impairment. Even these two instances affect the victim’s spouse and other close relatives in addition to themselves.
For spouses, these changes can be overwhelming. This is where a loss of consortium claim under Georgia personal injury law becomes relevant. Although many people are unaware of this legal concept, it plays a critical role in compensating for relationship-based losses.
What Does Consortium Mean in Legal Terms?
The loss of advantages that a close or intimate relationship provides is referred to in law as “loss of consortium.” This may involve losing:
- Companionship
- Affection
- Comfort
- Love
- Sexual relations and intimacy
A personal injury claim may result from loss of consortium. Unlike a standard personal injury claim, a loss of consortium claim is filed by the spouse of the injured victim—not the victim themselves.
The injured person’s family members may no longer be able to have the same closeness with the victim when the person is harmed or dies. A loss of consortium claim allows the spouse to seek compensation from the at-fault party for these intangible losses.
What Damages Are Available for Loss of Consortium in Georgia?
Loss of consortium is referred to as the absence of support, aid, affection, society, protection, marital intimacy, or fertility. A close relative of a victim who’s been hurt and is seeking a personal injury claim to obtain damages from the party at fault may also file a loss of consortium claim. Each state has its own unique definition of loss of consortium.
However, under Georgia law, loss of consortium damages do not include financial or economic losses. This means compensation does not cover:
- Costs for nursing care, housekeeping, or domestic services
- Loss of the injured spouse’s income or financial support
- Lost wages incurred while caring for the injured spouse
The amount granted for pain and suffering, loss of consortium, and comparable compensatory damages has historically been subject to “legislative caps”. However, the Atlanta Oculoplastic Surgery v. Nestlehutt’s decision by the Georgia Supreme Court in 2010 ruled these caps unconstitutional, restoring a jury’s ability to determine fair compensation.
In rare cases, punitive damages may also be awarded if the defendant’s conduct was particularly reckless or egregious. In Georgia, punitive damages are generally capped at $250,000 (with some exceptions).
Who Can File a Loss of Consortium Claim in Georgia?
In Georgia, only a legally married spouse of the injured person may file a loss of consortium claim. To qualify:
- The marriage must have been legally valid at the time of the accident
- The spouse must demonstrate that the injury negatively impacted the marital relationship
Because these claims are legally complex and highly fact-specific, working with a qualified personal injury attorney in Atlanta is essential to building a strong case.
Can Children File a Loss of Consortium Claim in Georgia?
What does the loss of consortium include if the claimant is the victim’s child? Loss of parental love, concern, affection, and spiritual support is meant by this (negligent injury). Even if everybody might agree that this benefits a child’s emotional development, parental loss of consortium is nonetheless a recognized legal term in Atlanta.
Sadly, the children of the injured parent aren’t allowed to make a loss of consortium claim in the State of Georgia. Parental loss of consortium is permitted in some other states, including Massachusetts, Washington, Florida, Arizona, and Connecticut, subject to respective laws.
The unfortunate reality of Georgia law is that losing a marital connection seems to have less of an impact on a child’s emotional anguish than losing parental care and a child’s affection in family ties.
Is Loss of Consortium An Intentional Tort?
If your spouse has been hurt physically or emotionally, you may be able to file a claim for loss of consortium. Loss of consortium claims may stem from incidents such as car accidents, medical malpractice, defective products, or intentional acts like assault. However, the harm must be significant and ongoing, and it must substantially interfere with your marriage.
Your spouse might file a claim if they were hurt in a car accident, by medical negligence, a faulty product, or as the consequence of an intentional assault. You may be able to sue for damages if this impacts your marriage negatively.
How to Prove Loss of Consortium?
A Georgia loss of consortium claim requires the proof of four elements.
- A Legal and Valid Marriage
Damages for loss of consortium aren’t calculated using a specific formula. The jury or judge will do their best to determine how much the component of your marriage was harmed due to your spouse’s injury.
Only the non-injured spouse may bring a loss of consortium claim, and the marriage must have been legally valid at the time of the injury. For example, if one spouse is injured, the other spouse has the right to pursue this derivative claim for relationship-based damages.
While the injured spouse cannot file for loss of consortium, they may still recover general damages such as pain and suffering, emotional distress, disability, and loss of enjoyment of life.
Juries will consider a variety of considerations, including:
The marriage’s stability. A couple on the verge of divorcing will find it difficult to distinguish the injury’s effects from the marriage’s pre-existing harm.
The spouses’ expected lifespans. Young couples will be compensated more than elderly couples because they will face decades of difficulties and problems.
The nature and scope of the relationship’s harm. This element may be crucial in determining how much a consortium claim is worth. These types of serious disruptions could result in a sizable award for a loss of consortium claim if the victim is physically disabled due to a spinal cord injury, suffered from a traumatic brain injury that altered their personality or cognitive abilities, or needs constant care and attention and will for a very long time.
- Tortious Harm to a Single Spouse
The injured spouse must have suffered harm due to another party’s negligence, recklessness, or intentional conduct. This means there must be a valid underlying personal injury claim against the defendant.
Even if both spouses were injured in the same incident, the non-injured spouse may still pursue a loss of consortium claim based on the impact to the relationship.
- Loss Experienced by the Non-Injured Spouse
The non-injured spouse must demonstrate that they have lost the ability to enjoy key aspects of the marital relationship. This often requires showing measurable changes in the injured spouse’s behavior, abilities, or emotional state, such as:
- Inability to take care of domestic responsibilities or help raise children;
- Alterations in mood, such as anger, melancholy, or anxiety; inability to partake in past-time pastimes with your spouse;
- Changes in one’s capacity or desire for sexual activity.
Severe injuries—such as spinal cord injuries or traumatic brain injuries—often result in higher-value consortium claims due to long-term or permanent impact.
Nearest Cause
You must demonstrate that the changes in your marital relationship were caused by the defendant’s actions and not by another circumstance.
You cannot receive compensation, for instance, if your spouse’s irritation is brought on by increased pressure at work rather than trauma from a recent injury.
How Is A Loss of Consortium Claim Calculated?
In Georgia, loss of consortium damages are classified as non-economic damages (pain and suffering). These damages compensate for intangible losses, such as the loss of companionship, emotional connection, and shared life experiences.
There is no fixed formula for calculating these damages. Instead, a jury will evaluate:
- The strength and stability of the marriage prior to the injury
- The severity and duration of the injury
- The overall impact on the relationship
- The life expectancy of both spouses in long-term or wrongful death cases
As these damages are subjective, juries rely on testimony and evidence to determine a fair and reasonable value.
The jury will consider the joint life span of both spouses (how long they would have expected to live together as a married couple) when determining the total amount of consortium damages to award in wrongful death cases and incidents involving catastrophic injuries where the injury is anticipated to last for the remainder of one spouse’s lifetime.
To learn more about how a loss of consortium claim is calculated, contact our personal injury attorneys.
What Damages Can I Receive for Loss of Consortium?
In Georgia, a successful loss of consortium claim allows recovery for non-economic damages only. This includes:
- Loss of companionship and emotional support
- Loss of marital intimacy
- Loss of shared experiences and quality of life
However, economic damages are not recoverable in a loss of consortium claim. This means you cannot recover:
- Lost income or financial support from the injured spouse
- Costs of caregiving or domestic services
- Wages lost while caring for your spouse
Recoverable Damages
In Georgia, a person who loses the consortium of their spouse or domestic partner may be eligible to receive non-economic damages. There’s no set formula for calculating loss of consortium damages, and a jury may select an amount that is reasonable given the gravity of the harm. Naturally, the reward is higher the longer the injury lasts.
Losses That Cannot Be Recovered
The recovery will not cover economic losses for consortium loss. This implies that damages resulting from a spouse’s diminished earning capacity or medical expenses won’t be compensated. Damages for loss of consortium will not additionally include:
- Personal care for the disabled spouse, such as a nursing service
- Loss of the monetary assistance that the injured spouse would have provided
- Loss of earnings a plaintiff endured as a result of quitting their job to care for their wounded spouse
- Domestic assistance to take the place of those initially provided by an injured spouse
What Happens If a Spouse Gets Permanent Injuries?
Injuries sustained by the victim may permanently impact the victim’s connection with their spouse. Damages may be recoverable up to the injured spouse’s expected death. Life expectancy will be assessed in these situations based on how long it was before the spouse’s injury.
The goal of this is to protect surviving spouses from punishment when harm shortens their partner’s life expectancy. For instance, regardless of whether an accident seriously reduced a victim’s life expectancy, a jury may award a spouse a far higher sum of damages, including both past and future loss of consortium.
It’s vital to understand that jurors typically dislike non-injured spouses who attempt to recover damages based solely on their husband’s or wife’s modest physical injuries. Therefore, even though this is a potential area for damages in any accident case where the wounded party is married, many attorneys will not request consortium loss damages on minor instances out of concern for retaliation against the uninjured spouse.
In catastrophic injury cases, damages are often significantly higher due to the lasting and profound disruption to the marital relationship.
How Do You File a Loss of Consortium Personal Injury Claim?
If the harm to your spouse or partner has caused a loss in your relationship, you can be entitled to compensation under Georgia’s loss of consortium rules.
You can make a personal injury claim regardless of whether your spouse files their own case; you’ll do it apart from any action your spouse brings.
However, time could be crucial. Your claim for loss of consortium will be invalidated if your spouse files a personal injury lawsuit and loses because the court has already ruled in the defendant’s favor.
Contact our personal injury attorneys to discuss the specifics of the incident and your legal options if your spouse was severely hurt due to someone else’s carelessness or wrongful act. You may be eligible for monetary compensation. A good attorney-client relationship is important since honesty and strong communication are pivotal.
How Comparative Fault Affects Loss of Consortium Claims
Georgia follows a modified comparative fault rule, meaning compensation may be reduced if the injured spouse is partially responsible for the accident.
For example, if a jury awards $20,000 in loss of consortium damages but finds the injured spouse 40% at fault, the award would be reduced to $12,000.
Why You Need a Personal Injury Lawyer
Loss of consortium claims are challenging to prove and often contested by insurance companies. An experienced attorney can:
- Assess the strength of your claim
- Gather supporting evidence and expert testimony
- Negotiate for maximum compensation or represent you in court
At Henningsen Injury Attorneys, P.C., we have extensive experience handling complex personal injury and loss of consortium claims in Georgia. We are committed to helping you protect your rights and pursue the full compensation you deserve.
Get Help With Your Loss of Consortium Claim Today
Contact Henningsen Injury Attorneys, P.C. today for a free consultation and speak with an experienced Atlanta personal injury attorney about your loss of consortium claim.
Let our team guide you through the legal process and fight for the compensation your family deserves.
