332
Opinion of the Court
explicitly held in Thurston: "Congress intended for liquidated damages to be punitive in nature." Id., at 125.5
Our holding in Thurston disposes of respondent's argument and requires the conclusion that liquidated damages under the ADEA, like back wages under the ADEA, are not received "on account of personal injury or sickness." 6
5 We find it noteworthy that the Court in Thurston was presented with many of the arguments offered by respondent today. For example, to counter the argument that "the ADEA liquidated damages provision is punitive," the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) argued that "the legislative history of the liquidated damages provision in the ADEA—as in the FLSA—shows that such damages are designed to provide full compensation to the employee, rather than primarily to punish the employer." Brief for EEOC in Transworld Airlines, Inc. v. Thurston, O. T. 1984, Nos. 83-997 and 83-1325, p. 36. The EEOC continued: "Thus, Congress focused on the need to be fair to the employee, and to provide him full compensation for nonpecuniary damages not readily calculable, including emotional injuries such as humiliation and loss of self respect." Id., at 36-37. See also id., at 37 (relying on Overnight Motor Transp. Co. v. Missel, 316 U. S. 572 (1942)). Against this background, the Court's statement that "Congress intended for liquidated damages to be punitive in nature" can only be taken as a rejection of the argument that those damages are also (or are exclusively) compensatory.
We recognize that the House Conference Report accompanying the 1978 Amendments to the ADEA contains language that supports respondent. See H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 95-950 (1978). However, this evidence was before the Court in Thurston, see Brief for EEOC, at 37, and the Court did not find it persuasive. We see no reason to reach a different result now.
Moreover, there is much force to the Court's conclusion in Thurston that the ADEA's liquidated damages provisions are punitive. Under our decision in Thurston, liquidated damages are only available under the ADEA if "the employer . . . knew or showed reckless disregard for the matter of whether its conduct was prohibited by the ADEA." 469 U. S., at 126 (internal quotation marks omitted). If liquidated damages were designed to compensate ADEA victims, we see no reason why the employer's knowledge of the unlawfulness of his conduct should be the determinative factor in the award of liquidated damages.
6 We find odd the dissent's suggestion, post, at 341-342, that our holding today assumes that the intangible harms of discrimination do not constitute personal injuries. We of course have no doubt that the intangible harms of discrimination can constitute personal injury, and that compensation for
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