Opinion ID: 1713078
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Lost consortium.

Text: The defendant contends a claim for lost consortium must be predicated on a personal injury to the spouse. Because of the nature of the underlying non-trauma injury of Elaine, he argues the district court erred in submitting the consortium claim of her husband Donald to the jury. See 1 Iowa Uniform Jury Instructions 3.17 (1984). The jury returned a verdict in favor of Donald. This type of issue was raised by the husband in Cole v. Taylor, 301 N.W.2d 766, 768 (Iowa 1981), in which his wife sued her psychiatrist for failing to prevent her from committing murder. We did not directly address the issue, however, because we held that where the underlying action may not be maintained on grounds of public policy, a claim for lost consortium fails for the same reason. Cases bearing on the issue of necessity of a physical injury to support a claim for lost spousal consortium are collected in the annotation at 16 A.L.R.4th 537, 538-43 (1982). We forego an extensive analysis of the various views on this question because, under the factual record and the instructions in this case, the jury could find pain, suffering, and disability on which a claim for lost consortium could be predicated. Accordingly, the court did not err in submitting Donald's claim for lost consortium to the jury.