Supreme Court: EEOC can award compensatory damages

The Equal Opportunity Employment Commission can order federal agencies to pay compensatory damages stemming from discrimination complaints filed by their employees, the Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The case, West v. Gibson (98-238), originated from a sex discrimination complaint filed by Michael Gibson, a Department of Veterans Affairs employee, against the department. Gibson won a promotion and back pay from the EEOC, but as his case progressed through the appeals courts, an additional request for compensatory damages was dismissed.

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in March 1998 that the EEOC didn't have the legal power to award such damages. Allowing the EEOC to award damages in an administrative setting would be a violation of an agency's right to a jury trial, the court ruled. However, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals had previously ruled that EEOC did have such authority.

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court held that the EEOC has the authority to require agencies to pay compensatory damages when they violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination in employment.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who delivered the majority opinion, said a 1991 change to Title VII made it clear that EEOC had the power to order compensatory damages. In addition, he wrote, allowing the EEOC to award such damages would encourage alternatives to dispute resolution at the court level. Denying that right "would force into courts matters that the EEOC might otherwise have resolved," while allowing it "would increase efforts to resolve hundreds, if not thousands, of such disputes each year," Breyer wrote.

National Treasury Employees Union President Robert M. Tobias called the decision "a major victory," saying it "will go a long way toward deterring intentional discrimination in employment practices in the federal sector."

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy called the majority opinion "unsettling." The Civil Rights Act of 1964, he noted, authorized the EEOC to enforce federal compliance of Title VII through "appropriate remedies," such as reinstatement or hiring with or without back pay. "Unlike other similar statutes, however, the provision does not mention awards of compensatory damages," and it is not obvious that the phrase "appropriate remedies" includes compensatory damages, Kennedy wrote.

Kennedy was joined in the dissenting opinion by justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.