100
Scalia, J., dissenting
The remaining argument offered by the Court is that our decision in Commissioner v. Schleier, 515 U. S. 323 (1995), came "close to resolving"—in the Government's favor—the question whether § 104(a)(2) permits the exclusion of punitive damages. Ante, at 83. I disagree. In Schleier we were faced with the question whether backpay and liquidated damages under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA) were "damages received . . . on account of personal injuries or sickness" for purposes of § 104(a)(2)'s exclusion. As the dissent accurately observed, 515 U. S., at 342 (opinion of O'Connor, J.), "the key to the Court's analysis" was the determination that an ADEA cause of action did not necessarily entail "personal injury or sickness," so that the damages awarded for that cause of action could hardly be awarded "on account of personal injuries or sickness." See id., at 330. In the case at hand, we said, "respondent's unlawful termination may have caused some psychological or 'personal' injury comparable to the intangible pain and suffering caused by an automobile accident," but "it is clear that no part of respondent's recovery of back wages is attributable to that injury." Ibid. The respondent countered that at least "the liquidated damages portion of his settlement" could be linked to that psychological injury. Id., at 331. And it was in response to that argument that we made the statement which the Court seeks to press into service for today's opinion. ADEA liquidated damages, we said, were punitive in nature, rather than compensatory. Id., at 331-332, and n. 5.
The Court recites this statement as though the point of it was that punitive damages could not be received "on account of" personal injuries, whereas in fact the point was quite different: Since the damages were punishment for the conduct that gave rise to the (non-personal-injury) cause of action, they could not be "linked to" the incidental psychological injury. In the present cases, of course, there is no question that a personal injury occurred and that this per-
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