## Facts

- A head-on tractor-trailer collision occurred in Pennsylvania involving a truck driven by Robert P. Folk and a truck owned by York-Shipley, Inc. and driven by its employee.
- Robert Folk, a Delaware domiciliary, suffered serious injuries.
- Donna G. Folk, Robert’s wife and a Delaware domiciliary, sued for loss of consortium in Delaware Superior Court alongside her husband’s personal injury claim.
- York-Shipley, Inc. was incorporated in Delaware.
- The parties agreed Delaware conflict-of-laws rules apply Pennsylvania substantive tort law because the accident occurred in Pennsylvania.
- The parties also agreed Pennsylvania law did not recognize a wife’s cause of action for loss of consortium at the time.

## Issues

1. Whether a Delaware wife may maintain a loss-of-consortium claim in Delaware when the underlying personal injury occurred in Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania law bars such a claim.
2. Whether the consortium claim should be treated as a separate Delaware tort (at the marital domicile) or as part of the Pennsylvania tort where the injury occurred.
3. Whether Delaware should apply renvoi by using Pennsylvania’s conflict-of-laws rules (potentially pointing back to Delaware law) rather than applying only Pennsylvania substantive law.

## Decision

- The Delaware Supreme Court affirmed the Superior Court’s partial summary judgment dismissing Donna Folk’s loss-of-consortium claim.
- The court held the consortium claim was governed by Pennsylvania substantive law as part of the Pennsylvania tort.
- The court declined to apply renvoi; it applied Pennsylvania substantive law without adopting Pennsylvania’s conflict-of-laws methodology.
- Because Pennsylvania did not recognize a wife’s consortium action, Donna Folk had no enforceable consortium claim in Delaware.

## Legal Principles

- Under Delaware’s lex loci delicti rule for torts, the substantive law of the place of the wrong governs the existence and scope of tort causes of action.
- A spouse’s loss-of-consortium claim is treated as derivative of the injured spouse’s underlying bodily injury and is not a separate tort located at the marital domicile.
- Loss of consortium is characterized as a tort remedy, not a domestic-relations or status issue governed by the law of the marital domicile.
- Delaware rejects renvoi in this context: when applying another state’s law under choice-of-law rules, Delaware applies that state’s substantive law, not its conflict-of-laws rules.

## Conclusion

The court held that the accident created a Pennsylvania tort governed by Pennsylvania substantive law, treated the wife’s consortium claim as derivative of the husband’s injury, and refused to apply renvoi; accordingly, the wife’s consortium claim was barred and properly dismissed on partial summary judgment.


Folk v. York-Shipley, Inc., 239 A.2d 236 (Del. 1968)