Professor James Augustus Henderson Jr.

1937 - 2019

Professor James Augustus Henderson, Jr.

Vero Beach - Professor James Augustus Henderson Jr., born February 6, 1938, died July 2, 2019.

Born February 6, 1938 in Miami, Florida to James A. Henderson, Sr. and Ruth Taylor Henderson. A native Floridian, Jim graduated from Coral Gables High School in 1955, then proceeded to travel north to continue his education, attending Princeton University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in English in 1959. He then went to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he both attended Harvard Law School and met his wife of 59 years, Marcia Dustan Henderson. Jim received his initial law degree in 1962, then clerked for Judge Warren L. Jones of the United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, in Jacksonville, Florida.

After completing his clerkship Jim embarked upon his lifelong journey as a legal scholar, returning to Harvard to obtain an LL.M in 1964 and then joining the faculty at the Boston University School of Law, where he taught for 20 years. In 1984, Jim moved to Ithaca, New York, and the Cornell Law School, where he was named the Frank B. Ingersoll Professor of Law and taught for an additional 29 years. He also spent time visiting the law schools of The University of Colorado at Boulder, University of Virginia, and Brooklyn Law School. Notwithstanding his somewhat imposing stature, Jim was acclaimed by colleagues and students alike as a gentle and kind presence in the law school halls.

Jim's dedication to scholarly work beyond the classroom was embodied by the numerous textbooks and law review articles he wrote and published over the course of five decades. His law school textbooks included The Torts Process (9 editions), Products Liability: Problem and Process (8 editions) and Torts: Cases and Materials (4 editions), and he authored over 80 scholarly law review articles - his main passion as a legal scholar. Jim's nationally recognized expertise in the areas of torts and products liability led him to appointments by the American Law Institute as co-reporter to the Restatement of Torts (3rd): Products Liability and co-advisor to the Restatement of Torts (3rd): Torts, with his long standing co-author and friend Professor Aaron Twerski of the Brooklyn Law School. They would both go on to serve as co-Special Masters in the World Trade Center Disaster Site Litigation, which supported the 9/11 rescue workers fund.

He was also the recipient of the R. Ammi Cutter Distinguished Award from the American Law Institute (1997) as well as a recipient of the Robert B. McKay Law Professor Award (2011) from the American Bar Association for professors of law who have shown advancement to justice, scholarship and the legal profession, demonstrated by contributions in the field of tort, trial practice, or insurance law. His greatest honor was as the recipient of the William L Prosser Award, Outstanding Contributions to Tort Scholarship Tort Section, from the American Association of Law Schools in 2014. His lifelong love of tort scholarship was kept him writing daily until the end of his life.

He is survived by his wife Marcia, his son James D. Henderson of Stow, Massachusetts (wife Morgan Kennedy Henderson, children Jacob Tucker Henderson, Rhiannon Revell Henderson) and daughter Katherine Henderson Helber of Moraga, California (husband Benjamin Carter Helber, children, Kai Taylor Helber, Emmaline Knowlton Helber). He is also survived by many dear friends, peers in the legal world, and friends who felt like family. He was a big man in many ways, with an iconic mind and will be missed dearly for many years to come.

The family asks that gifts in memory of Jim be made to Cornell Law School, direct to the Professor James A. Henderson Jr. Memorial Fund. Gifts may be mailed to Cornell Law School, G28 Hughes Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853. Gifts may also be made to his alma mater in memory of James A. Henderson Jr. '59 to Friends of Princeton Football, PO Box 5356, Princeton, NJ 08543.