## Facts

- Sharon Jean Hendrix lived with Lebron Mitchell in a long-term, marriage-like cohabiting relationship, but they were not legally married.
- Mitchell allegedly suffered bodily injuries caused by a defect in an automobile manufactured by General Motors Corporation (GM).
- Mitchell and Hendrix sued GM; Mitchell sought damages for his injuries, and Hendrix asserted a separate claim for loss of consortium based on Mitchell’s injuries.
- GM challenged Hendrix’s consortium claim by demurrer, arguing California limits loss-of-consortium recovery to legally married spouses.
- The trial court sustained GM’s demurrer without leave to amend as to Hendrix’s loss-of-consortium cause of action and entered judgment dismissing that claim.
- Hendrix appealed from the dismissal of her loss-of-consortium cause of action.
- After the Court of Appeal issued its decision, the California Supreme Court granted review and the proceeding was later dismissed under former Rule 19(b), which removed the opinion’s precedential effect.

## Issues

1. Whether an unmarried cohabitant in a stable, marriage-like relationship may recover damages for loss of consortium under California law.
2. Whether to extend consortium standing beyond legal marriage in line with a then-recent appellate decision, or to follow authorities confining consortium recovery to spouses.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment sustaining the demurrer without leave to amend.
- The court held that a legal marriage is required to state a cause of action for loss of consortium in California.
- The court declined to extend loss-of-consortium standing to unmarried cohabitants, even where the relationship is long-term and marriage-like.
- The court relied on post-Rodriguez authority limiting consortium recovery to injuries occurring within a legal marriage and rejected the contrary approach taken in another appellate decision.
- The court emphasized administrability concerns and the need for an objective, easily verifiable boundary for consortium claims.
- The court indicated that any expansion of consortium liability to nonmarital relationships should come from the Legislature rather than judicial modification of tort doctrine.
- The court rejected the premise that an unmarried cohabitant has a constitutional entitlement to a consortium cause of action; the claim’s existence and scope were treated as matters of state tort law.

## Legal Principles

- In California, loss of consortium is a derivative tort claim available only to a legally married spouse of an injured person.
- Recognition of consortium damages in California jurisprudence did not, without more, expand the class of eligible plaintiffs beyond spouses.
- Bright-line rules based on legal marital status may be favored in relational tort claims to avoid fact-intensive inquiries into the “quality” or “stability” of intimate relationships.
- Broad expansion of tort standing and liability for relational harms is a policy choice ordinarily suited to legislative action rather than judicial extension.
- There is no independent constitutional right requiring recognition of a loss-of-consortium cause of action for unmarried cohabitants.

## Conclusion

The court held that an unmarried cohabitant cannot recover for loss of consortium arising from injuries to a partner because California confines consortium claims to legally married spouses, and it affirmed dismissal of Hendrix’s consortium cause of action on demurrer.


Hendrix v. Gen. Motors Corp., 146 Cal. App. 3d 296 (Cal. Ct. App. 1983)