## Facts

- Mr. Israel Neuberg was injured as an occupant in an automobile intersection collision allegedly caused by negligent drivers.
- Mr. Neuberg sued in trespass for personal injuries and related losses.
- Mrs. Toby Neuberg joined as a co-plaintiff seeking damages for loss of her husband’s consortium, described as loss of society, services, and sexual companionship.
- The defendant filed preliminary objections in the nature of a demurrer and moved to strike the consortium allegations, asserting no such cause of action existed for a wife.
- The trial court sustained the objections and struck the wife’s consortium claim; Mrs. Neuberg appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether Pennsylvania law recognizes an independent cause of action by a पत्नी for loss of her husband’s consortium caused by a third party’s negligence.
2. Whether policy concerns (duplicative recovery, speculative damages, increased litigation) justify denying such a claim at the pleading stage.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania reversed the order sustaining the preliminary objections to the wife’s consortium claim.
- The Court held that a married woman has a cause of action for negligent loss of her husband’s consortium.
- The case was allowed to proceed with the wife’s consortium claim remaining in the pleadings.

## Legal Principles

- Loss of consortium is a compensable marital injury that includes society, comfort, companionship, services, and sexual relations.
- The common-law rule granting consortium remedies only to husbands rests on outdated marital status doctrines and lacks a modern justification where spouses have reciprocal legal rights.
- In the absence of a statutory bar, courts may recognize a wife’s consortium action when common-law limitations are inconsistent with contemporary legal treatment of married women.
- Concerns about double recovery and multiple suits can be managed through joinder and careful damages instructions rather than by eliminating the cause of action.
- Intangible relational harms are not categorically noncompensable; tort law routinely permits recovery for non-economic injuries when supported by proof.

## Conclusion

Pennsylvania recognizes a wife’s independent claim for consortium losses resulting from negligent injury to her husband, and dismissal of such a claim on preliminary objections is improper.


Neuberg v. Bobowicz, 401 Pa. 146, 162 A.2d 662 (Pa. 1960)