In a personal injury case, the spouse of the injured person has a right to make a claim for personal injuries.
This means that the spouse is entitled to $$ in their own right for the inconvenience, friction and loss of affection the spouse suffered due to the injured parties injuries.
For example, suppose you are married and you are rear ended in a car accident.
You need back surgery as a result of the car accident.
Further you are off of work for 6 weeks due to the surgery and recuperation required.
You of course are entitled to $$damages for your injuries. The amount is up to a jury to decide.
In addition your wife is entitled to $$under a consortium claim for the inconvenience, family friction, and loss of affection she suffered during your recuperation.
Suppose in that example your wife had to wait on you hand and foot while you were getting better. Suppose she had to take a leave of absence from her job to do so.
Under that circumstance your wife could be awarded a substantial amount of $$ in her own right for the consortium claim.
It gets better.
Suppose as a result of your back surgery and injuries you could not sleep in your bed for six weeks.
Under that example, your wife is entitled to $$ under the consortium claim for her loss of companionship with you during this period.
What if the two of you could not engage in sexual relations during your recovery…
You got it kid.
The law allows your wife to recover $$ under the consortium claim for the lack of physical contact that is sexual relations between the two of you.
As you can imagine this gets very personal.
I have been in many depositions, where the insurance company attorney goes into great detail on this part of the consortium claim.
Usually, everyone has their head down during this questioning. Why?
Because it’s so darn personal.
I mean sitting there hearing a married couple talk about the subject makes everyone in the room pretty uncomfortable.
In my experience, the insurance company attorneys are just as uncomfortable asking these kind of questions as we are. But it’s necessary to fully develop the wife’s claim.
Pittsburgh wrongful death, car accident, trucking accident and slip and fall attorney Bernie Tully will show you ways to get around this situation without having to review intimate details about your family situation.
That’s just one of the advantages of doing wrongful death, car accident, product liability and medical malpractice cases for over 25 years. You learn ways around difficult situations.
Anyway on a personal note, my wife Michelle had foot surgery about two months ago.
Not accident related.
Since we are empty-nesters I became Nurse Bernie trying to help Michelle recuperate.
She had to sleep downstairs for the whole two months.
Guess how that would relate to a consortium claim?
I had to miss a bit of work just trying to get her ready every day and getting food on the table for us at dinner.
Did that create tension and friction between the two of us?
Is the Pope Catholic?
Of course it did.
Michelle and I have even joked about how much my consortium claim would be worth in a personal injury case. I would take $1,000,000. Haha.
I guess we’ll never know.
Oh well.
Thanks for reading.
Bernie the attorney.