## Facts

- Eli Lilly manufactured and sold a fungicide called “Parnon.”
- Jose Santos Diaz used Parnon in his work from August 1968 through September 1970 and allegedly suffered severe bodily injury from exposure.
- Milagros Diaz, Jose’s wife, alleged that Jose’s injuries caused her loss of consortium, including loss of services, society, affection, companionship, and marital relations.
- Milagros alleged Eli Lilly was negligent for failing to provide adequate warnings about the product’s dangers.
- The case reached the court on the pleadings after Eli Lilly challenged the legal sufficiency of Milagros’s claim.

## Issues

1. Whether Massachusetts law recognizes an independent cause of action for a wife’s loss of consortium resulting from negligent bodily injury to her husband by a third party.

## Decision

- The court reversed the order sustaining the demurrer and held that the wife’s declaration stated a cognizable claim.
- The court recognized a married woman’s independent cause of action for loss of consortium caused by negligent injury to her husband.
- The case was remanded for further proceedings consistent with recognizing the claim.

## Legal Principles

- A spouse may recover for loss of consortium resulting from the tortious bodily injury of the other spouse.
- Consortium includes more than economic “services” and may include society, affection, companionship, and marital relations.
- Common-law rules that allowed husbands, but not wives, to recover for loss of consortium rest on outdated views of marriage and are not maintained where inconsistent with modern legal equality.
- Concerns about increased litigation and potential double recovery are addressed through procedural management (e.g., joinder and trial coordination), not by denying the existence of the claim.

## Conclusion

Massachusetts recognized that a wife has an independent tort claim for loss of consortium when her husband is negligently injured by a third party, rejecting prior sex-based limitations and allowing the claim to proceed beyond the pleadings.


Diaz v. Eli Lilly & Co., 364 Mass. 153, 302 N.E.2d 555 (1973)