Shelly Priester sued for loss of consortium after her husband was injured in a car wreck, but the trial court held that her claim was barred because her husband's separate renewal action had previously been dismissed with prejudice for lack of service and discovery violations. The Court of Appeals of Georgia reversed. It held that, although a consortium claim is derivative in the sense that it arises from injury to the other spouse, it remains an independent cause of action personal to the consortium claimant and was not automatically barred by the procedural dismissal of the husband's separately filed lawsuit. The reasoning distinguished cases where the injured spouse never had any viable tort claim at all from this case, where the husband's claim failed for procedural reasons rather than because the underlying tort claim never existed. Under Stapleton, that difference matters, and Shelly Priester's separate action could proceed.