In personal injury law, you often encounter terms most people don’t know. There’s no shame in not knowing these terms. You’ll likely only know them if you’re either a lawyer or you involve yourself in a personal injury case as either the defendant or the plaintiff.
For instance, you might hear about “loss of consortium.” It’s a term that comes up a lot in personal injury cases. We will examine that concept in detail right now.
What Does Loss of Consortium Mean?
If someone brings up the loss of consortium in a personal injury case, they mean that the injured party can no longer behave in a certain way toward their family members anymore. For instance, if a spouse can no longer have a physically intimate relationship with their partner because another party harmed them, that probably constitutes a loss of consortium.
Caps on Loss of Consortium Cases
Different states handle the loss of consortium differently in terms of how much money the injured party can collect from the guilty one. Some states cap the amount you can recover, meaning you can only receive up to a certain threshold if you attempt to prove that this situation occurred.
However, you will also find some states with no monetary loss of consortium cap. For instance, Florida has no cap on loss of consortium cases. That means, if a court finds against a defendant and they feel they legitimately caused loss of consortium, they may reward the plaintiff hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.
Does Loss of Consortium Mean Anything Other Than Sex?
If you hear the someone has loss of consortium following an accident, you might automatically think it means they can no longer have a sexual relationship with a spouse or partner. That can certainly occur. For example, maybe a company made a product that harmed someone. The injury made it impossible for them to have a satisfying sexual relationship with a spouse or partner from that point forward.
However, physical intimacy might not necessarily mean sex. You can argue loss of consortium occurred in cases where a person or business entity harmed an individual, and after that, they could not cuddle with their spouse or show them the same level of affection or moral support that they did before.
For instance, maybe you’ll have a situation where someone walked past a construction site. Some falling debris hit that person in the head. They were in a coma, but eventually, they woke up.
They returned home, but they were never the same again afterward. Perhaps they couldn’t have sex with their spouse, but maybe they also no longer had the mental capacity to show them any kind of love or affection.
With brain injuries, your whole personality can change, so this scenario might easily occur. If so, that’s a situation where the injured party could very well assert loss of consortium.
How Can You Know How Much Money You’ll Get in a Loss of Consortium Case?
If you sue someone in a personal injury case, and you’re only going after them for tangible financial losses, like the cost of medical bills and lost wages, you can easily figure out how much they owe you. You can show the medical bills in court or calculate how many days or hours of work you’ve missed.
However, when you start to get into non-economic losses, it becomes more difficult. Loss of consortium cases certainly fall into this category. How can you know how much someone should pay you if you can no longer have a physically intimate relationship with a spouse? What should this person or entity pay if you can’t show your children that you love them anymore because you’ve sustained brain damage?
Frankly, there’s no easy way you or your lawyer might answer this question. Any amount you get might seem arbitrary. Does half a million dollars seem right, or do you need five million instead?
As your lawyer will probably tell you, if you’re in a state with a cap on how much money you can get for loss of consortium, then you can look at that cap as a determining factor. If the state won’t let you get any money beyond a predetermined threshold, you can’t go after the guilty party for any more than that.
If you’re in a state with no financial cap on loss of consortium cases, then you can ask for any amount you like. In such instances, the jury will probably look at precedent when determining how much money they should award you, assuming the case goes all the way to a jury’s verdict.
How Can You Prove Loss of Consortium?
You must prove loss of consortium in the same way you’d establish damages in any other personal injury lawsuit. As the plaintiff, the more evidence you can present to a jury that proves your case, the more probable you will win.
You might provide medical records that show the damage the person or entity who harmed you inflicted. You can also call on eyewitnesses of the incident or accident, if applicable. You can provide pictures or video evidence if any exists. The more physical evidence you present that proves what you say happened, the more likely you can win your case.
Settlement Offers Often Occur in These Cases
In many instances, you can force a settlement offer if you’re the plaintiff in a loss of consortium case. During the pre-trial discovery process, if you can provide a mountain of evidence that clearly shows the defendant’s guilt, then their counsel might very well suggest to them that they try to settle with you.
If they refuse, the case will go to trial. That’s risky, though. If the defendant doesn’t win their case, then that probably means they’ll pay a lot more through a jury’s verdict.
Now, you know all about the loss of consortium. Hopefully, it’s not something you will ever personally experience.
