Cite as: 519 U. S. 79 (1996)
Scalia, J., dissenting
with no apparent purpose except to make clear that not only compensatory damages were covered by the exclusion.
The Court maintains, however, that the Government's reading of § 104(a)(2) is "more faithful to [its] history." Ante, at 84. The "history" to which the Court refers is not statutory history of the sort just discussed—prior enactments approved by earlier Congresses and revised or amended by later ones to produce the current text. Indeed, it is not "history" from within even a small portion of Congress, since the House Committee Report the Court cites, standing by itself, is uninformative, saying only that "[u]nder the present law it is doubtful whether . . . damages received on account of [personal] injuries or sickness are required to be included in gross income." H. R. Rep. No. 767, 65th Cong., 2d Sess., 9-10 (1918). The Court makes this snippet of legislative history relevant by citing as pertinent an antecedent Treasury Department decision, which concludes on the basis of recent judicial decisions that amounts received from prosecution or compromise of a personal-injury suit are not taxable because they are a return of capital. Ante, at 85 (citing T. D. 2747, 20 Treas. Dec. Int. Rev. 457 (1918)).
One might expect the Court to conclude from this that the Members of Congress (on the unrealistic assumption that they knew about the Executive Branch opinion) meant the statutory language to cover only return of capital, the source of the "doubt" to which the Committee Report referred. But of course the Court cannot draw that logical conclusion, since even if it is applied only to compensatory damages the statute obviously and undeniably covers more than mere return of "human capital," namely, reimbursement for lost income, which would be a large proportion (indeed perhaps the majority) of any damages award. The Court concedes this is so, but asserts that this inconsistency is not enough "to support cutting the statute totally free from its original moorings," ante, at 86, by which I assume it means the Treasury Decision, however erroneous it might have been as
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