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I. INTRODUCTION
William Lloyd Prosser was one of the most accomplished and influential scholars of the 20th century. When he died in 1972, his colleagues described him as "a great Master of Torts."1 Prosser was synonymous with his subject: "Rarely in the history of American legal education has one author's name been so clearly identified with his subject as the name of William L. Prosser is with the law of torts."2 The Washington Post, in 1986, described Prosser as "a scholar and author who was to torts what Dr. Spock is to child care."3 Even today, he retains a considerable reputation; the Association for American Law Schools Torts and Compensation Systems Section named its annual award for him.
His reputation and influence stem from multiple sources. First, and most significantly, there is his treatise, known as "Prosser on Torts."4 The treatise has been celebrated far beyond the dreams of typical academic authors: "Prosser on Torts! It has a completed sound, a belonging sound, a natural sound, a sound to be remembered for years to come."5 Two prominent academics recently stated the treatise was not only the most influential torts treatise, but for nearly 50 years, it "was arguably the leading single-volume treatise in American legal scholarship."6 Second, Prosser served as the Reporter for the Restatement (Second) of Torts, which scholars have described as "the most influential of the American Law Institute's volumes restating and reshaping American law."7 Third, he authored a casebook that has gone through 13 editions, and, 43 years after his death, remains the leader in a highly competitive market.8
Through these works and a series of law review articles, Prosser exerted considerable influence on the development of several tort doctrines, most notably products liability, privacy, and the intentional infliction of emotional distress. In the products area, Prosser's 1941 treatise called for strict liability for injuries caused by products9 three years prior to Justice Roger Traynor's concurrence in Escola v. Coca Cola Bottling Co.10 His 1960 article, The Assault Upon the Citadel,11 has been described as "a model of how legal scholarship can serve to further doctrinal change in a common law subject."12 Moreover, in drafting the products liability sections of the Restatement (Second) of Torts, especially § 402A, Prosser legitimized strict...