## Facts

- Mary Anne Rodriguez and Richard Rodriguez married in 1969 and planned to buy a home and have children.
- Sixteen months into the marriage, Richard suffered catastrophic work-related injuries when a falling pipe struck his head, causing severe spinal cord damage and extensive paralysis.
- Richard became largely confined to home and bed and required assistance with most daily activities.
- Mary Anne quit her job to provide round-the-clock care and alleged severe loss of companionship, affection, sexual relations, and the ability to have children, as well as disruption of shared life plans.
- Richard filed a personal injury action; Mary Anne filed a separate action seeking (1) damages for loss of consortium, (2) the value of nursing services she provided, and (3) damages for her lost earnings and earning capacity.
- Defendants demurred, relying on then-controlling California decisions denying a spouse any cause of action for loss of consortium based on negligent injury to the other spouse.
- The trial court sustained demurrers without leave to amend and dismissed Mary Anne’s claims; the Court of Appeal affirmed, concluding it was bound by existing precedent.

## Issues

1. Whether California should recognize a cause of action for loss of consortium by a spouse when the other spouse is negligently injured by a third party.
2. Whether policy concerns (indirectness of harm, speculative damages, multiplicity of actions, and double recovery) justify denying such a claim.

## Decision

- The California Supreme Court reversed the judgment of dismissal and remanded.
- The court overruled prior California decisions that barred loss-of-consortium claims arising from negligent injury to a spouse.
- The court held that each spouse has a cause of action for loss of consortium caused by a negligent or intentional injury to the other spouse by a third party.

## Legal Principles

- A spouse may maintain an independent tort action for loss of consortium (loss of companionship, affection, conjugal fellowship, and sexual relations) when the other spouse is injured by a third party’s negligent or intentional conduct.
- The non-injured spouse’s harm may be treated as a foreseeable consequence of serious injury to a married person; the absence of physical impact to the claimant does not bar recovery where the loss is reasonably foreseeable.
- Difficulty in quantifying consortium damages is not a categorical bar; juries may assess non-economic losses as in other tort contexts.
- Concerns about multiple actions and double recovery are addressed through procedural mechanisms (including joinder and coordinated factfinding), rather than by denying the cause of action.
- The rule applies equally to husbands and wives, reflecting marriage as a partnership in which both spouses have a legally protected interest in the marital relationship.

## Conclusion

California recognized a spouse’s independent right to recover for loss of consortium resulting from a third party’s negligent or intentional injury to the other spouse, rejecting prior precedent and treating the spouse’s relational injury as a foreseeable, compensable harm manageable through ordinary trial procedures.


Rodriguez v. Bethlehem Steel Corp., 12 Cal. 3d 382 (Cal. 1974)