INTENTIONAL INFLICTION OF MENTAL SUFFERING: A NEW TORT

Authors

William L. Prosser, University of MinnesotaFollow

Abstract

It is time to recognize that the courts have created a new tort. It appears, in one disguise or another, in more than a hundred decisions, the greater number of them within the last two decades. Of course there is no necessity whatever that there should be separate torts, or that a tort must have a name; but if a name must be found for this one, we might do worse than to borrow a word from the vernacular of Kentucky and points south, and call it "orneriness." It is something very like assault. It consists of the intentional, outrageous infliction of mental suffering in an extreme form.

Recommended Citation

William L. Prosser, INTENTIONAL INFLICTION OF MENTAL SUFFERING: A NEW TORT, 37 Mich. L. Rev. 874 (1939).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol37/iss6/3