106
Opinion of Thomas, J.
right of action to obtain the authorized relief. 29 U. S. C. § 626(c)"); 1 B. Lindemann & P. Grossman, Employment Discrimination Law 573-574 (3d ed. 1996) ("The ADEA grants any aggrieved person the right to sue for legal or equitable relief that will effectuate the purposes of the Act" (citing § 626(c)(1)) (footnote omitted)). While the right-of-action provisions in §§ 626(c) and 216(b) are not identically phrased, compare § 626(c)(1) ("Any person aggrieved may bring a civil action in any court of competent jurisdiction for such legal or equitable relief as will effectuate the purposes of this chapter"), with § 216(b) ("An action to recover the liability prescribed in either of the preceding sentences may be maintained against any employer (including a public agency) in any Federal or State court of competent jurisdiction . . ."), they are certainly similar in function.
Indeed, if § 216(b)'s private right-of-action provision were incorporated by § 626(b) and hence available to ADEA plaintiffs, the analogous right of action established by § 626(c)(1) would be wholly superfluous—an interpretive problem the Court does not even pause to acknowledge. To avoid the overlap, one might read the ADEA to create an exclusive private right of action in § 626(c)(1), and then to add various embellishments, whether from elsewhere in the ADEA, see § 626(c)(2) (trial by jury), or from the incorporated parts of the FLSA, see, e. g., § 216(b) (collective actions); ibid. (attorney's fees); ibid. (liquidated damages).4
Of course the Court's interpretation—that an ADEA plaintiff may choose § 626(c)(1) or § 216(b) as the basis for his private right of action—is also plausible. "But such a permissible inference, whatever its logical force, would remain just that: a permissible inference. It would not be the unequivocal declaration which . . . is necessary before we will determine that Congress intended to exercise its powers
4 The ADEA expressly limits this last remedy to "cases of willful violations." 29 U. S. C. § 626(b); see Lorillard v. Pons, 434 U. S. 575, 581 (1978).
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