Commissioner v. Schleier, 515 U.S. 323, 13 (1995)

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Cite as: 515 U. S. 323 (1995)

Opinion of the Court

cluded that Title VII was not tortlike because it addressed " 'legal injuries of an economic character.' " 504 U. S., at 238, 239.

Respondent points to two elements of the ADEA that he argues distinguish it from the remedial scheme at issue in Burke: First, the ADEA provides for jury trial, see 29 U. S. C. § 626(b); Lorillard v. Pons, 434 U. S., at 585; but cf. Lehman v. Nakshian, 453 U. S. 156 (1981); and second, the ADEA allows for liquidated damages. We do not believe that these features of the ADEA are sufficient to bring it within Burke's conception of a "tort type righ[t]." It is true, as respondent notes, that we emphasized in Burke the lack of a right to a jury trial and the absence of any provision for punitive damages as factors distinguishing the pre-1991 Title VII action from traditional tort litigation, 504 U. S., at 238- 240. We did not, however, indicate that the presence of either or both of those factors would be sufficient to bring a statutory claim within the coverage of the regulation.

In our view, respondent's argument gives insufficient attention to what the Burke Court recognized as the primary characteristic of an "action based upon . . . tort type rights": the availability of compensatory remedies. Indeed, we noted that "one of the hallmarks of traditional tort liability is the availability of a broad range of damages to compensate the plaintiff 'fairly for injuries caused by the violation of his legal rights.' " Id., at 235. We continued: "Although these damages often are described in compensatory terms . . . , in many cases they are larger than the amount necessary to reimburse actual monetary loss sustained or even anticipated by the plaintiff, and thus redress intangible elements of injury that are deemed important, even though not pecuniary in [their] immediate consequence[s]." Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). Against this background, we found critical that the pre-1991 version of Title VII provided no compensation "for any of the other traditional harms associated with personal injury, such as pain and suffering, emo-

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