Law Commons^™

Battle For Disclosure Tort, Jared A. Wilkerson

W&M Law Student Publications

Legal scholars guided the creation and development of privacy torts, including what would become known as the disclosure tort, for about seventy-five years (1890-1965), a period in which most states came to recognize a common law or statutory right to privacy. Since then, scholarly attempts to curb or modify the tort have yielded little. This Article-beginning with the formalism-realism debate won by Brandeis, Pound, and Prosser and ending with modern experts--shows that notwithstanding enormous efforts by contemporary legal academics, would-be reformers of the disclosure tort have not budged it since Prosser's Restatement (Second). The Article presents both a lesson and …