It can add real value to a case because it covers harm that does not show up on a medical bill or pay stub: the damage an injury does to a close family relationship. Technically, loss of consortium is a category of damages claimed by the spouse or, in some situations, another close family member of an injured person for the loss of companionship, affection, comfort, help, care, and sometimes intimacy caused by the injury or death.

This matters because a serious crash or other trauma can change daily life at home just as much as it changes the injured person's body. A partner may no longer be able to share parenting, household work, emotional support, or the ordinary closeness that held the relationship together. In a wrongful death or catastrophic injury case, those losses can be a meaningful part of the total case value, even though they are harder to measure than lost wages.

In New Mexico, loss of consortium is usually treated as a derivative claim, which means it depends on the underlying injury case. If the injured person cannot prove negligence, the consortium claim usually fails too. And because New Mexico follows pure comparative fault under Scott v. Rizzo (1981), any fault assigned to the injured person can reduce the recovery, including damages tied to loss of consortium.