Loss of Consortium in New York: The Claim a Spouse Can Bring

It is also derivative, which is the part that surprises people and the part that matters most in practice.

What "derivative" actually means

The consortium claim rides on the injured person's claim. If the injured spouse's case fails, the consortium claim fails with it. If the injured spouse is found partly at fault, the consortium claim is reduced by the same share.

It is not a separate grievance against the defendant. It is a recognition that a serious injury to one person is an injury to a marriage, and that the law lets the other spouse recover for that loss rather than pretending it did not happen.

Who can bring it in New York

• A legal spouse, married at the time of the injury. This is the requirement that most often ends the question.
• Not a fiancé or long-term partner, however long the relationship. New York has not extended consortium to unmarried couples.
• Not a child for an injured parent, and not a parent for an injured child. New York courts have declined to recognize those claims.
• Marrying after the injury does not create the claim — the marriage must have existed when the injury occurred.

What it covers

Consortium is broader than the physical relationship, though that is included. It reaches the loss of companionship and society, the loss of the injured spouse's assistance in running a household, and the change in the marriage itself when one partner becomes a carer.

In practical terms these claims are strongest where the injury is permanent and life-altering — a spinal cord injury, a serious brain injury, an amputation, a catastrophic burn. They are weakest where the injury resolves.

How it is actually proved

Not with adjectives. What carries a consortium claim is specific, ordinary detail: who did the driving before and who does it now, who handled the stairs, what the couple did together on a weekend and no longer does, the caregiving hours, the sleep, the practical rearrangement of a life.

It is also uncomfortable. A consortium claim opens the marriage to discovery, and the defense is entitled to ask about it. That is worth knowing before it is brought, not during a deposition.

How it is valued

There is no schedule and no multiplier. A consortium claim is valued against the severity and permanence of the injury, the length of the marriage, the couple's ages, and how much the relationship has demonstrably changed. A jury is being asked to put a figure on something people find difficult to describe, which is why the specific and unglamorous detail carries more weight than the emotional language.

In settlement, consortium is frequently negotiated as part of the overall number rather than as a separate line. That does not make it worthless — it makes the injured spouse's claim larger.

What the defense does with it

Two things, usually. It argues the injury is not severe or permanent enough to have changed the marriage, which is the same fight as the main case. And it looks for evidence that the relationship was already strained — a prior separation, a pending divorce, long periods living apart. Discovery into the marriage is the price of the claim, and it is why a consortium claim is not automatically worth adding to every file.

Same-sex marriage and domestic partnership

Marriage is marriage for these purposes: a same-sex spouse has the same consortium claim as any other spouse. Registered domestic partnership is a different status and does not carry the claim — New York has tied consortium to marriage rather than to the substance of the relationship, which is exactly the line that leaves long-term unmarried partners with nothing.

Consortium and wrongful death are not the same thing

This confusion costs families real money. If the injured person survives, the spouse's claim is loss of consortium. If the injured person dies, consortium ends at death and a different statute takes over — and New York's wrongful death law is narrower than most people expect, focused on economic loss to survivors rather than on grief or companionship. We set that out in what families can actually recover in a New York wrongful death case, and how we handle those claims on our wrongful death page.

Deadlines

The consortium claim generally follows the injured spouse's own deadline — three years for most personal injury claims under CPLR § 214, and much shorter where a public body is involved. Because it is derivative, it is usually pleaded alongside the injured spouse's case rather than separately, and letting the main claim lapse takes the consortium claim with it.

Common questions

This page is general information about New York law. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship with Davidov & Cohen Law. To talk about your own situation, tell us what happened.