Cite as: 515 U. S. 323 (1995)
Opinion of the Court
because the recovery of back wages was not "on account of" any personal injury and because no personal injury affected the amount of back wages recovered.
Respondent suggests, nonetheless, that the liquidated damages portion of his settlement fits comfortably within the plain language of § 104(a)(2)'s exclusion. He cites our observation in Overnight Motor Transp. Co. v. Missel, 316 U. S. 572 (1942), that liquidated damages under the FLSA "are compensation, not a penalty or punishment," and that such damages might compensate for "damages too obscure and difficult of proof for estimate." Id., at 584-585; see also Brooklyn Savings Bank v. O'Neil, 324 U. S. 697, 707 (1945). He argues that Congress must be presumed to have known of our interpretation of liquidated damages when it incorporated FLSA's liquidated damages provision into the ADEA, and that Congress must therefore have intended that liquidated damages under the ADEA serve, at least in part, to compensate plaintiffs for personal injuries that are difficult to quantify.
We agree with respondent that if Congress had intended the ADEA's liquidated damages to compensate plaintiffs for personal injuries, those damages might well come within § 104(a)(2)'s exclusion. There are, however, two weaknesses in respondent's argument. First, even if we assume that Congress was aware of the Court's observation in Overnight Motor that the liquidated damages authorized by the FLSA might provide compensation for some "obscure" injuries, it does not necessarily follow that Congress would have understood that observation as referring to injuries that were personal rather than economic. Second, and more importantly, we have previously rejected respondent's argument: We have already concluded that the liquidated damages provisions of the ADEA were a significant departure from those in the FLSA, see Lorillard v. Pons, 434 U. S., at 581; Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Thurston, 469 U. S., at 126, and we
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