Loss of consortium

The action was originally expressed in the Latin phrase "per quod servitium et consortium amisit" ("in consequence of which he lost [another person's] servitude and marital services"). The relationship between husband and wife has, historically, been considered worthy of legal protection. The interest being protected under consortium, is that which the head of the household (father or husband) had in the physical integrity of his wife, children, or servants. The undertone of this action is that the husband had an unreciprocated proprietary interest in his wife. The deprivations identified include the economic contributions of the injured spouse to the household, care and affection, and sex. The action was once available to a father against a man who was courting his daughter outside of marriage, on the grounds that the father had lost the consortium of his daughter's household services because she was spending time with her beau.

Loss of consortium arising from personal injuries was recognized under the English common law. In 1349, the Statute of Labourers made legal provision to prevent servants changing employers, and to prevent prospective employers enticing servants away from other employers. Common law developed on the basis of this statute, such that the law extended from covering servants to covering family members. Since some family relationships were seen as analogous to property relationships (e.g. fathers owned their children and husbands owned their wives), harm done to family members could be seen as deprivation of benefits to the family member with legal control over them. For example, in Baker v Bolton (1808) 1 Camp 493, a man was permitted to recover for his loss of consortium while his wife languished after a carriage accident. However, once she died from her injuries, his right to recover for lost consortium ended (after the enactment of the Lord Campbell's Act (9 and 10 Vic. c. 93) the English common law continued to prohibit recovery for loss of consortium resulting from the death of a victim). In the 1619 case Guy v. Livesey, it is clear that precedent had been established by that time that a husband's exclusive access to the sexual services of his wife was considered to fall within the concept of 'consortium', and that an adulterer might therefore be prosecuted for depriving a cuckold of exclusive access to the sexual services of his wife. Since adultery could not otherwise be prosecuted in secular courts for most of the period after the twelfth century, loss of consortium became an important basis for prosecution for adultery in English law.[2]

Actions for loss of consortium were abolished in England and Wales and Northern Ireland by the Administration of Justice Act 1982 (UK) s 2.