The death of a spouse causes losses that extend far beyond lost income and household expenses. A surviving husband or wife may lose companionship, affection, emotional support, assistance, and many other benefits of the marital relationship.
Loss of consortium is a legal concept used to address certain injuries to that relationship. In a wrongful death lawsuit, the precise damages available to a surviving spouse depend on the law governing the claim, but the destruction of the marital relationship can be an important part of the family’s damages.
Consortium damages are personal. They focus on what the surviving spouse has lost because the other spouse died, rather than simply measuring the deceased person’s wages or financial contributions.
What Does Loss of Consortium Mean?
Consortium generally concerns the benefits spouses receive from their marital relationship. Although the terminology and recoverable elements vary by jurisdiction, the concept can encompass companionship, affection, emotional support, assistance, intimacy, and other aspects of married life.
These losses cannot be calculated from a paycheck or receipt.
Two spouses with similar incomes can experience very different personal losses following a death. The length and nature of the marriage, shared activities, daily routines, family responsibilities, and closeness of the relationship can all help explain the effect of the death.
Loss of consortium should therefore not be reduced to a predetermined dollar amount based on how long a couple was married.
The evidence should instead demonstrate the actual relationship that existed and what the surviving spouse lost when that relationship was permanently ended.
Is Loss of Consortium an Economic Damage?
Loss of consortium is generally different from financial losses such as lost wages or financial support.
Economic damages can often be evaluated using employment records, tax returns, benefit information, and financial projections. Consortium and similar relational damages concern losses that do not have a direct market price.
Our discussion of economic and non-economic wrongful death damages explains why a family may have both measurable financial losses and substantial personal losses following a preventable death.
For example, a surviving spouse may lose the deceased person’s expected future income and employment benefits. Those are financial issues. The same spouse may also lose decades of companionship, affection, shared experiences, and support. Those are different losses even though they arise from the same death.
Recognizing the distinction helps explain why wrongful death damages cannot be calculated simply by multiplying the deceased person’s annual income by a number of remaining work years.
How Is Loss of Consortium Proven?
Because consortium is based on a human relationship rather than an invoice, evidence concerning the marriage can become important.
A surviving spouse may testify about the relationship, daily life, family responsibilities, shared activities, plans for the future, and the ways the deceased person provided companionship and support.
Photographs, correspondence, family videos, communications, and testimony from relatives or friends may also help demonstrate the nature of the marriage.
The purpose is not to present an artificial image of a perfect relationship. Real marriages have ordinary disagreements and difficulties. The relevant issue is the actual relationship and the benefits of that relationship that were lost.
The ages of the spouses and expected duration of the relationship may also be relevant depending on applicable law.
A spouse who expected decades of married life can face a long future without the companionship and support that existed before the death.
Is Consortium Separate From Other Wrongful Death Damages?
A surviving spouse can potentially suffer several different categories of loss. Consortium should not be confused with lost financial support, household services, funeral expenses, or damages belonging to the deceased person’s estate.
The law governing the claim determines which damages are recoverable and how they should be characterized.
Other beneficiaries may also have separate legally recognized losses. Children, for example, can lose parental guidance, care, and companionship. Parents may suffer their own legally recognized losses after the death of a child.
Because different beneficiaries can suffer different damages, wrongful death proceeds are not necessarily divided automatically into equal shares.
Our discussion of who decides how to divide wrongful death money explains why the nature of each beneficiary’s losses can become relevant when settlement proceeds or a judgment must be allocated.
Evaluating the Loss of a Spouse
No formula can accurately calculate what a surviving spouse has lost. A marriage is a personal relationship built over time, and its value cannot be determined from financial records alone.
A proper wrongful death evaluation considers both the economic and personal effects of the death. That may include lost financial support, lost household contributions, companionship, affection, assistance, and other legally recognized losses.
The strength of the underlying liability case also matters. Before damages can be recovered, evidence must establish that another person or company was legally responsible for the death.
An experienced wrongful death lawyer can investigate the fatal event, determine which law applies, identify the damages available to the surviving spouse and other beneficiaries, and develop evidence demonstrating the full effect of the loss.
Money cannot replace a husband or wife or recreate a marriage that has been ended by a preventable death. Loss-of-consortium damages are one way the civil justice system recognizes that the death of a spouse causes a profound personal loss extending far beyond financial support.
