Justice ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Privacy Act of 1974, codified in part at 5 U.S.C. § 552a, contains a comprehensive and detailed set of requirements for the management of confidential records held by Executive Branch agencies. If an agency fails to comply with those requirements "in such a way as to have an adverse effect on an individual," the Act authorizes the individual to bring a civil action against the agency. § 552a(g)(1)(D). For violations found to be "intentional or willful," the United States is liable for "actual damages." § 552a(g)(4)(A). In this case, we must decide whether the term "actual damages," as used in the Privacy Act, includes damages for mental or emotional distress. We hold that it does not.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires pilots to obtain a pilot certificate and medical certificate as a precondition for operating an aircraft. 14 CFR § 61.3(a), (c) (2011). Pilots must periodically renew their medical certificates to ensure compliance with FAA medical standards. See § 61.23(d). When applying for renewal, pilots must disclose any illnesses, disabilities, or surgeries they have had, and they must identify any medications they are taking. See 14 CFR pt. 67.
Respondent Stanmore Cooper has been a private pilot since 1964. In 1985, he was diagnosed with a human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and began taking antiretroviral medication. At that time, the FAA did not issue medical certificates to persons with respondent's condition. Knowing that he would not qualify for renewal of his medical certificate, respondent initially grounded himself and chose not to apply. In 1994, however, he applied for and received a medical certificate, but he did so without disclosing his HIV status or his medication. He renewed his certificate in 1998, 2000, 2002, and 2004, each time intentionally withholding information about his condition.
When respondent's health deteriorated in 1995, he applied for long-term disability benefits under Title II of the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. § 401 et seq. To substantiate his claim, he disclosed his HIV status to the Social Security Administration (SSA), which awarded him benefits for the year from August 1995 to August 1996.
In 2002, the Department of Transportation (DOT), the FAA's parent agency, launched a joint criminal investigation with the SSA, known as "Operation Safe Pilot," to identify medically unfit individuals who had obtained FAA certifications to fly. The DOT gave the SSA a list of names and other identifying information of 45,000 licensed pilots in northern California. The SSA then compared the list with its own
The spreadsheet revealed that respondent had a current medical certificate but had also received disability benefits. After reviewing respondent's FAA medical file and his SSA disability file, FAA flight surgeons determined in 2005 that the FAA would not have issued a medical certificate to respondent had it known his true medical condition.
When investigators confronted respondent with what had been discovered, he admitted that he had intentionally withheld from the FAA information about his HIV status and other relevant medical information. Because of these fraudulent omissions, the FAA revoked respondent's pilot certificate, and he was indicted on three counts of making false statements to a Government agency, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001. Respondent ultimately pleaded guilty to one count of making and delivering a false official writing, in violation of § 1018. He was sentenced to two years of probation and fined $1,000.
Claiming that the FAA, DOT, and SSA (hereinafter Government) violated the Privacy Act by sharing his records with one another, respondent filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. He alleged that the unlawful disclosure to the DOT of his confidential medical information, including his HIV status, had caused him "humiliation, embarrassment, mental anguish, fear of social ostracism, and other severe emotional distress." App. to Pet. for Cert. 120a. Notably, he did not allege any pecuniary or economic loss.
The District Court granted summary judgment against respondent. 816 F.Supp.2d 778, 781 (N.D.Cal.2008). The court concluded that the Government had violated the Privacy Act and that there was a triable issue of fact as to whether the violation was intentional or willful.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded. 622 F.3d 1016, 1024 (2010). The court acknowledged that the term "actual damages" is a "`chameleon'" in that "its meaning changes with the specific statute in which it is found." Id., at 1029. But the court nevertheless held that, as used in the Privacy Act, the term includes damages for mental and emotional distress. Looking to what it described as "[i]ntrinsic" and "[e]xtrinsic" sources, id., at 1028, 1031, the
The Government petitioned for rehearing or rehearing en banc, but a divided court denied the petition. Id., at 1019. The Government then petitioned for certiorari, and we granted review. 564 U.S. ____, 131 S.Ct. 3025, 180 L.Ed.2d 843 (2011).
Because respondent seeks to recover monetary compensation from the Government for mental and emotional harm, we must decide whether the civil remedies provision of the Privacy Act waives the Government's sovereign immunity with respect to such a recovery.
We have said on many occasions that a waiver of sovereign immunity must be "unequivocally expressed" in statutory text. See, e.g., Lane v. Peña, 518 U.S. 187, 192, 116 S.Ct. 2092, 135 L.Ed.2d 486 (1996); United States v. Nordic Village, Inc., 503 U.S. 30, 33, 112 S.Ct. 1011, 117 L.Ed.2d 181 (1992); Irwin v. Department of Veterans Affairs, 498 U.S. 89, 95, 111 S.Ct. 453, 112 L.Ed.2d 435 (1990). Legislative history cannot supply a waiver that is not clearly evident from the language of the statute. Lane, supra, at 192, 116 S.Ct. 2092. Any ambiguities in the statutory language are to be construed in favor of immunity, United States v. Williams, 514 U.S. 527, 531, 115 S.Ct. 1611, 131 L.Ed.2d 608 (1995), so that the Government's consent to be sued is never enlarged beyond what a fair reading of the text requires, Ruckelshaus v. Sierra Club, 463 U.S. 680, 685-686, 103 S.Ct. 3274, 77 L.Ed.2d 938 (1983) (citing Eastern Transp. Co. v. United States, 272 U.S. 675, 686, 47 S.Ct. 289, 71 S.Ct. 472 (1927)). Ambiguity exists if there is a plausible interpretation of the statute that would not authorize money damages against the Government. Nordic Village, supra, at 34, 37, 112 S.Ct. 1011.
The question that confronts us here is not whether Congress has consented to be sued for damages under the Privacy Act. That much is clear from the statute, which expressly authorizes recovery from the Government for "actual damages." Rather, the question at issue concerns the scope of that waiver. For the same reason that we refuse to enforce a waiver that is not unambiguously expressed in the statute, we also construe any ambiguities in the scope of a waiver in favor of the sovereign. Lane, supra, at 192, 116 S.Ct. 2092.
Although this canon of interpretation requires an unmistakable statutory expression of congressional intent to waive the Government's immunity, Congress need not state its intent in any particular way. We have never required that Congress use magic words. To the contrary, we have observed that the sovereign immunity canon "is a tool for interpreting the law" and that it does not "displac[e] the other traditional tools of statutory construction." Richlin Security Service Co. v. Chertoff, 553 U.S. 571, 589, 128 S.Ct. 2007, 170 L.Ed.2d 960 (2008). What we thus require is that the scope of Congress' waiver be clearly discernable from the statutory text in light of traditional interpretive tools. If it is not, then we take the interpretation most favorable to the Government.
The civil remedies provision of the Privacy Act provides that, for any "intentional or willful" refusal or failure to comply with the Act, the United States shall
Even as a legal term, however, the meaning of "actual damages" is far from clear. The latest edition of Black's Law Dictionary available when Congress enacted the Privacy Act defined "actual damages" as "[r]eal, substantial and just damages, or the amount awarded to a complainant in compensation for his actual and real loss or injury, as opposed on the one hand to `nominal' damages, and on the other to `exemplary' or `punitive' damages." Black's Law Dictionary 467 (rev. 4th ed.1968). But this general (and notably circular) definition is of little value here because, as the Court of Appeals accurately observed, the precise meaning of the term "changes with the specific statute in which it is found." 622 F.3d, at 1029.
The term is sometimes understood to include nonpecuniary harm. Take, for instance, some courts' interpretations of the Fair Housing Act (FHA), 42 U.S.C. § 3613(c), and the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), 15 U.S.C. §§ 1681n, 1681o. A number of courts have construed "actual" damages in the remedial provisions of both statutes to include compensation for mental and emotional distress. See, e.g., Seaton v. Sky Realty Co., 491 F.2d 634, 636-638 (C.A.7 1974) (authorizing compensatory damages under the FHA, 42 U.S.C. § 3612, the predecessor to § 3613, for humiliation); Steele v. Title Realty Co., 478 F.2d 380, 384 (C.A.10 1973) (stating that damages under the FHA "are not limited to out-of-pocket losses but may include an award for emotional distress and humiliation"); Thompson v. San Antonio Retail Merchants Assn., 682 F.2d 509, 513-514 (C.A.5 1982) (per curiam) (explaining that, "[e]ven when there are no out-of-pocket expenses, humiliation and mental distress do constitute recoverable elements of damage" under the FCRA); Millstone v. O'Hanlon Reports, Inc., 528 F.2d 829, 834-835 (C.A.8 1976) (approving an award of damages under the FCRA for "loss of sleep, nervousness, frustration and mental anguish").
In other contexts, however, the term has been used or construed more narrowly to authorize damages for only pecuniary harm. In the wrongful-death provision of the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), for example, Congress authorized "actual or compensatory damages, measured by the pecuniary injuries resulting from such death." 28 U.S.C. § 2674, ¶ 2. At least one court has defined "actual damages" in the Copyright Act of 1909, 17 U.S.C. § 101(b) (1970 ed.), as "the extent to which the market value of a copyrighted work has been injured or destroyed by an infringement." Frank Music Corp. v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., 772 F.2d 505, 512 (C.A.9 1985); see also Mackie v. Rieser, 296 F.3d 909, 917 (C.A.9 2002) (holding that "`hurt feelings' over the nature of the infringement" have no place in the actual damages calculus). And some courts have construed "actual damages" in the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U.S.C.
Because the term "actual damages" has this chameleon-like quality, we cannot rely on any all-purpose definition but must consider the particular context in which the term appears.
The Privacy Act directs agencies to establish safeguards to protect individuals against the disclosure of confidential records "which could result in substantial harm, embarrassment, inconvenience, or unfairness to any individual on whom information is maintained." 5 U.S.C. § 552a(e)(10); see also § 2(b), 88 Stat. 1896 (stating that the "purpose of this Act is to provide certain safeguards for an individual against an invasion of personal privacy"). Because the Act serves interests similar to those protected by defamation and privacy torts, there is good reason to infer that Congress relied upon those torts in drafting the Act.
In Doe v. Chao, 540 U.S. 614, 124 S.Ct. 1204, 157 L.Ed.2d 1122 (2004), we held that the Privacy Act's remedial provision authorizes plaintiffs to recover a guaranteed minimum award of $1,000 for violations of the Act, but only if they prove
This parallel between the Privacy Act and the common-law torts of libel per quod and slander suggests the possibility that Congress intended the term "actual damages" in the Act to mean special damages. The basic idea is that Privacy Act victims, like victims of libel per quod or slander, are barred from any recovery unless they can first show actual—that is, pecuniary or material—harm. Upon showing some pecuniary harm, no matter how slight, they can recover the statutory minimum of $1,000, presumably for any unproven harm. That Congress would choose to use the term "actual damages" instead of "special damages" was not without precedent. The terms had occasionally been used interchangeably. See, e.g., Wetzel v. Gulf Oil Corp., 455 F.2d 857, 862 (C.A.9 1972) (holding that plaintiff could not establish libel per quod because he "did not introduce any valid and sufficient evidence of actual damage"); Electric Furnace Corp. v. Deering Milliken Research Corp., 325 F.2d 761, 765 (C.A.6 1963) (stating that "libel per quod standing alone without proof of actual damages . . . will not support a verdict for the plaintiff"); M & S Furniture Sales Co. v. Edward J. De Bartolo Corp., 249 Md. 540, 544, 241 A.2d 126, 128 (1968) ("In the case of words or conduct actionable only per quod, the injurious effect must be established by allegations
Any doubt about the plausibility of construing "actual damages" in the Privacy Act synonymously with "special damages" is put to rest by Congress' refusal to authorize "general damages." In an uncodified section of the Act, Congress established the Privacy Protection Study Commission to consider, among other things, "whether the Federal Government should be liable for general damages." § 5(c)(2)(B)(iii), 88 Stat.1907, note following 5 U.S.C. § 552a, p. 712. As we explained in Doe, "Congress left the question of general damages . . . for another day." 540 U.S., at 622, 124 S.Ct. 1204. Although the Commission later recommended that general damages be allowed, ibid., n. 4, Congress never amended the Act to include them. For that reason, we held that it was "beyond serious doubt" that general damages are not available for violations of the Privacy Act. Id., at 622, 124 S.Ct. 1204.
By authorizing recovery for "actual" but not for "general" damages, Congress made clear that it viewed those terms as mutually exclusive. In actions for defamation and related dignitary torts, two categories of compensatory damages are recoverable: general damages and special damages. Cooley § 164, at 579; see also 4 Restatement § 867, Comment d (1939) (noting that damages for interference with privacy "can be awarded in the same way in which general damages are given for defamation").
Not surprisingly, this interpretation was accepted by the Privacy Protection Study
We do not claim that the contrary reading of the statute accepted by the Court of Appeals and advanced now by respondent is inconceivable. But because the Privacy Act waives the Federal Government's sovereign immunity, the question we must answer is whether it is plausible to read the statute, as the Government does, to authorize only damages for economic loss. Nordic Village, 503 U.S., at 34, 37, 112 S.Ct. 1011. When waiving the Government's sovereign immunity, Congress must speak unequivocally. Lane, 518 U.S., at 192, 116 S.Ct. 2092. Here, we conclude that it did not. As a consequence, we adopt an interpretation of "actual damages" limited to proven pecuniary or economic harm. To do otherwise would expand the scope of Congress' sovereign immunity waiver beyond what the statutory text clearly requires.
None of respondent's contrary arguments suffices to overcome the sovereign immunity canon.
Respondent notes that the term "actual damages" has often been defined broadly in common-law cases, and in our own, to include all compensatory damages. See Brief for Respondent 18-25. For example, in Birdsall v. Coolidge, 93 U.S. 64, 23 S.Ct. 802 (1876), a patent infringement case, we observed that "[c]ompensatory damages and actual damages mean the same thing." Ibid. And in Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 94 S.Ct. 2997, 41 L.Ed.2d 789 (1974), we wrote that actual injury in the defamation context "is not limited to out-of-pocket loss" and that it customarily includes "impairment of reputation and standing in the community, personal humiliation, and mental anguish and suffering." Id., at 350, 94 S.Ct. 2997.
These cases and others cited by respondent stand for the unremarkable point that the term "actual damages" can include nonpecuniary loss. But this generic meaning does not establish with the requisite clarity that the Privacy Act, with its distinctive features, authorizes damages for mental and emotional distress. As we already explained, the term "actual damages" takes on different meanings in different contexts.
Respondent's stronger argument is that the exclusion of "general damages" from the statute simply means that there can be no recovery for presumed damages. Privacy Act victims can still recover for mental and emotional distress, says respondent, so long as it is proved. See Brief for Respondent 54-56.
Aside from the fact that general damages need not be proved, what distinguishes those damages, whether proved or not, from the only other category of compensatory damages available in the relevant common-law suits is the type of harm. In defamation and privacy cases, "the affront to the plaintiff's dignity and the emotional harm done" are "called general damages, to distinguish them from proof of actual economic harm," which is called "special damages." Id., § 3.2, at 139; see also supra, at 1450-1451, 1452-1453, and nn. 6, 7, 9. Therefore, the converse of general damages is special damages, not all proven damages, as respondent would have it. Because Congress removed "general damages" from the Act's remedial provision, it is reasonable to infer that Congress foreclosed recovery for nonpecuniary harm, even if such harm can be proved, and instead waived the Government's sovereign immunity only with respect to harm compensable as special damages.
Looking beyond the Privacy Act's text, respondent points to the use of the term "actual" damages in the remedial provisions of the FHA, 42 U.S.C. § 3613(c), and the FCRA, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1681n, 1681o. As previously mentioned, courts have held that "actual" damages within the meaning of these statutes include compensation for mental and emotional distress. Supra, at 1449. Citing the rule of construction that Congress intends the same language in similar statutes to have the same meaning, see Northcross v. Board of Ed. of Memphis City Schools, 412 U.S. 427, 428, 93 S.Ct. 2201, 37 L.Ed.2d 48 (1973) (per curiam), respondent argues that the Privacy Act should also be interpreted as authorizing damages for mental and emotional distress. See Brief for Respondent 25-32.
Assuming for the sake of argument that these lower court decisions are correct, they provide only weak support for respondent's argument here. Since the term "actual damages" can mean different things in different contexts, statutes other than the Privacy Act provide only limited interpretive aid, and that is especially true here. Neither the FHA nor the FCRA contains text that precisely mirrors the Privacy Act.
Respondent also points to the FTCA, but the FTCA's general liability provision does not even use the term "actual damages." It instead provides that the "United States shall be liable" for certain tort claims "in the same manner and to the same extent as a private individual" under relevant state law. 28 U.S.C. § 2674, ¶ 1. For that reason alone, the FTCA's general liability provision is not a reliable source for interpreting the term "actual damages" in the Privacy Act. Nor does the FTCA's wrongful-death provision—which authorizes "actual or compensatory damages, measured by the pecuniary injuries resulting from such death," § 2674, ¶ 2—prove that Congress understood the term "actual damages" in the Privacy Act to include nonpecuniary mental and emotional harm. To the contrary, it proves that actual damages can be understood to entail only pecuniary harm depending on the context. Because the FTCA, like the FHA and FCRA, does not share the same text or design as the Privacy Act, it is not a fitting analog for construing the Act.
Finally, respondent argues that excluding damages for mental and emotional harm would lead to absurd results. Persons suffering relatively minor pecuniary loss would be entitled to recover $1,000, while others suffering only severe and debilitating mental or emotional distress would get nothing. See Brief for Respondent 33-35.
Contrary to respondent's suggestion, however, there is nothing absurd about a scheme that limits the Government's Privacy Act liability to harm that can be substantiated by proof of tangible economic loss. Respondent insists that such a scheme would frustrate the Privacy Act's remedial purpose, but that ignores the fact that, by deliberately refusing to authorize general damages, Congress intended to cabin relief, not to maximize it.
It is so ordered.
Justice KAGAN took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Justice SOTOMAYOR, with whom Justice GINSBURG and Justice BREYER join, dissenting.
Congress enacted the Privacy Act of 1974 for the stated purpose of safeguarding individual privacy against Government invasion. To that end, the Act provides a civil remedy entitling individuals adversely affected by certain agency misconduct to recover "actual damages" sustained as a result of the unlawful action.
Today the Court holds that "actual damages" is limited to pecuniary loss. Consequently, individuals can no longer recover what our precedents and common sense understand to be the primary, and often only, damages sustained as a result of an invasion of privacy, namely mental or emotional distress. That result is at odds with the text, structure, and drafting history of the Act. And it cripples the Act's core purpose of redressing and deterring violations of privacy interests. I respectfully dissent.
The majority concludes that "actual damages" in the civil-remedies provision of the Privacy Act allows recovery for pecuniary loss alone. But it concedes that its interpretation is not compelled by the plain text of the statute or otherwise required by any other traditional tool of statutory interpretation. And it candidly acknowledges that a contrary reading is not "inconceivable." Ante, at 1453. Yet because it considers its reading of "actual damages" to be "plausible," the majority contends that the canon of sovereign immunity requires adoption of an interpretation most favorable to the Government. Ibid.
The canon simply cannot bear the weight the majority ascribes it. "The sovereign immunity canon is just that—a canon of construction. It is a tool for interpreting the law, and we have never held that it displaces the other traditional tools of statutory construction." Richlin Security Service Co. v. Chertoff, 553 U.S. 571, 589, 128 S.Ct. 2007, 170 L.Ed.2d 960 (2008) (opinion of ALITO, J.). Here, traditional tools of statutory construction—the statute's text, structure, drafting history, and purpose—provide a clear answer: The term "actual damages" permits recovery for all injuries established by competent evidence in the record, whether pecuniary or nonpecuniary, and so encompasses damages for mental and emotional distress. There is no need to seek refuge in a canon of construction, see id., at 589-590, 128 S.Ct. 2007 (declining to rely on canon as there is "no ambiguity left for us to construe" after application of "traditional tools of statutory interpretation and considerations of stare decisis"), much less one that has been used so haphazardly in the Court's history, see United States v. Nordic Village, Inc., 503 U.S. 30, 42, 112 S.Ct. 1011, 117 L.Ed.2d 181 (1992) (Stevens, J., dissenting) (canon is "nothing but a judge-made
It bears emphasis that we have said repeatedly that, while "we should not take it upon ourselves to extend the waiver [of sovereign immunity] beyond that which Congress intended," "[n]either . . . should we assume the authority to narrow the waiver that Congress intended." United States v. Kubrick, 444 U.S. 111, 117-118, 100 S.Ct. 352, 62 L.Ed.2d 259 (1979) (emphasis added). See also, e.g., Block v. Neal, 460 U.S. 289, 298, 103 S.Ct. 1089, 75 L.Ed.2d 67 (1983) ("The exemption of the sovereign from suit involves hardship enough where consent has been withheld. We are not to add to its rigor by refinement of construction where consent has been announced" (internal quotation marks omitted)). In the Privacy Act, Congress expressly authorized recovery of "actual damages" for certain intentional or willful agency misconduct. The Court should not "as a self-constituted guardian of the Treasury import immunity back into a statute designed to limit it." Indian Towing Co. v. United States, 350 U.S. 61, 69, 76 S.Ct. 122, 100 S.Ct. 48 (1955).
"In a statutory construction case, the beginning point must be the language of the statute, and when a statute speaks with clarity to an issue judicial inquiry into the statute's meaning, in all but the most extraordinary circumstance, is finished." Estate of Cowart v. Nicklos Drilling Co., 505 U.S. 469, 475, 112 S.Ct. 2589, 120 L.Ed.2d 379 (1992). The language of the civil-remedies provision of the Privacy Act is clear.
At the time Congress drafted the Act, Black's Law Dictionary defined "actual damages" as "[r]eal, substantial and just damages, or the amount awarded to a complainant in compensation for his actual and real loss or injury" and as "[s]ynonymous with `compensatory damages.'" Black's Law Dictionary 467 (rev. 4th ed.1968) (hereinafter Black's). The majority claims this is a "general" and "notably circular" definition, ante, at 1449, but it is unclear why. The definition is plain enough: "Actual damages" compensate for actual injury, and thus the term is synonymous with compensatory damages. See Black's 467 (defining "compensatory damages" as damages that "will compensate the injured party for the injury sustained, and nothing more; such as will simply make good or replace the loss caused by the wrong or injury").
The majority discards all this on the asserted ground that "the precise meaning of the term `changes with the specific statute in which it is found.'" Ante, at 1449 (quoting 622 F.3d 1016, 1029 (C.A.9 2010)). Context, of course, is relevant to statutory interpretation; it may provide clues that Congress did not employ a word or phrase in its ordinary meaning. That well-established interpretive rule cannot, however, render irrelevant—as the majority would have it—the ordinary meaning of "actual damages."
Moreover, the authority the majority cites for its claim that "actual damages" has no fixed meaning undermines—rather than supports—its holding. Each cited authority involves either a statute in which Congress expressly directed that compensation be measured in strictly economic terms, or else a statute (e.g., the Copyright Act of 1909) in which economic loss is the natural and probable consequence of a violation of the defined legal interest.
Indeed, the relevant statutory context— the substantive provisions whose breach may trigger suit under the civil-remedies provision—only reinforces the ordinary meaning of "actual damages."
Congress established substantive duties in the Act that are expressly designed to prevent agency conduct resulting in intangible harms to the individual. The Act requires agencies to "establish appropriate administrative, technical, and physical safeguards" to ensure against security breaches that could result in "substantial harm, embarrassment, inconvenience, or unfairness to any individual." 5 U.S.C. § 552a(e)(10). It also requires agencies to "maintain all records" used in making a determination about an individual in a
Adopting a reading of "actual damages" that permits recovery for pecuniary loss alone creates a disconnect between the Act's substantive and remedial provisions. It allows a swath of Government violations to go unremedied: A federal agency could intentionally or willfully forgo establishing safeguards to protect against embarrassment and no successful private action could be taken against it for the harm Congress identified. Only an interpretation of "actual damages" that permits recovery for nonpecuniary harms harmonizes the Act's substantive and remedial provisions. Robinson v. Shell Oil Co., 519 U.S. 337, 341, 117 S.Ct. 843, 136 L.Ed.2d 808 (1997) (statutory interpretation must consider "the broader context of the statute as a whole").
The majority draws a different conclusion from the substantive provisions of the Privacy Act. It (correctly) infers from them that the Act "serves interests similar to those protected by defamation and privacy torts." Ante, at 1450. It then points to our observation in Doe v. Chao, 540 U.S. 614, 625, 124 S.Ct. 1204, 157 L.Ed.2d 1122 (2004), that the Act's civil-remedies provision "parallels" the remedial scheme for the common-law torts of defamation per quod, which permitted recovery of "general damages" (i.e., presumed damages) only if a plaintiff first establishes "special damages" (i.e., monetary loss).
The majority reads too much into Doe. At issue in that case was the question whether the Act's civil-suit provision authorized recovery of a guaranteed minimum award of $1,000 absent proof of some "actual damages." The Court answered in the negative, and in the course of doing so replied to petitioner's argument that there was "something peculiar in offering some
The majority, moreover, is wrong to conclude that the Act's parallels with defamation per quod actions suggest Congress intended "actual damages" to mean "special damages." Quite the opposite. The fact that Congress "would probably have known about" defamation per quod actions, id., at 625, 124 S.Ct. 1204, makes it all the more significant that Congress did not write "special damages" in the civil-remedies provision. This Court is typically not in the business of substituting words we think Congress intended to use for words Congress in fact used. Yet that is precisely what the majority does when it rewrites "actual damages" to mean "special damages."
An uncodified provision of the Act, tied to the Act's drafting history, also reinforces the ordinary meaning of "actual damages." As the majority notes, prior to reconciliation, the Senate and House bills contained civil-remedies provisions that were different in a critical respect: The Senate bill allowed for the recovery of "actual and general damages," whereas the House bill allowed for the recovery of "actual damages" alone.
As the Court explained in Doe, "[t]he deletion of `general damages' from the bill is fairly seen . . . as a deliberate elimination of any possibility of imputing harm
Rather than view the deletion of general damages (presumed damages) as leaving the converse (proven damages), the majority supposes that the deletion leaves only a subset of proven damages—those of an economic nature, i.e., "special damages." Once again, however, the majority's insistence that "Congress intended `actual damages' in the Privacy Act to mean special damages for proven pecuniary loss," ante, at 1452, finds no basis in the statutory text, see supra, at 1459-1460. And its response to the conclusion that Congress retained recovery for proven damages when it eliminated presumed damages is singularly unsatisfying. The majority declares such a conclusion "flawed" because "general damages" "includes compensation for proven injuries as well," so that "what distinguishes [general] damages, whether proved or not, from the only other category of compensatory damages available in the relevant common-law suits is the type of harm" the term encompasses—which the majority takes to be emotional harm alone. Ante, at 1453-1454. That assertion is defective on two scores. First, a plaintiff's ability to present proof of injury in a defamation per se action (and to recover for such proven injury) does not alter the definition of "general damages," which we already explained in Doe means "presumed damages." 540 U.S., at 621, 124 S.Ct. 1204; see also id., at 623, 124 S.Ct. 1204; n. 5, supra. Second, "general damages" is not limited to a "type" of harm. The majority's contrary assertion that the term permits recovery only for emotional "types" of harm overlooks the fact that "general damages are partly based on the belief that the plaintiff will suffer unprovable pecuniary losses." Dobbs § 7.2, at 514 (emphasis added). It thus was established at common law that in a defamation per se action, "the plaintiff is usually free to prove whatever actual pecuniary loss he can," and "the jury may be permitted to view the actual pecuniary loss proven as the tip of the iceberg, assume that there is still more unproven, and award damage accordingly." Ibid.
At its core, the majority opinion relies on the following syllogism: The common law employed two terms of art in defamation actions. Because Congress excluded recovery for "general damages," it must have meant to retain recovery only for "special damages." That syllogism, of course, ignores that there is another category of damages. It is the very category Congress used in the text of the Privacy Act: "Actual damages." However much Congress may have drawn "parallels," ante, at 1451, between the Act and the common-law tort of defamation, the fact remains that Congress expressly choose not to use the words "special damages."
I turn finally to the statute's purpose, for "[a]s in all cases of statutory interpretation, our task is to interpret the words of th[e] statut[e] in light of the purposes Congress sought to serve." Chapman v. Houston Welfare Rights Organization, 441 U.S. 600, 608, 99 S.Ct. 1905, 60 L.Ed.2d 508 (1979); see also Dolan v. Postal Service, 546 U.S. 481, 486, 126 S.Ct. 1252, 163 L.Ed.2d 1079 (2006) ("Interpretation of a word or phrase depends upon reading the whole statutory text, considering the purpose and context of the statute, and consulting any precedents or authorities that inform the analysis"). The purposes of the Privacy Act could not be more explicit, and they are consistent with interpreting "actual damages" according to its ordinary meaning.
"The historical context of the Act is important to an understanding of its remedial purposes. In 1974, Congress was concerned with curbing the illegal surveillance and investigation of individuals by federal agencies that had been exposed during the Watergate scandal." Dept. of Justice, Office of Privacy and Civil Liberties, Overview of the Privacy Act 4 (2010). In particular, Congress recognized that "the increasing use of computers and sophisticated information technology ... has greatly magnified the harm to individual privacy that can occur from any collection, maintenance, use, or dissemination of personal information." § 2(a), 88 Stat. 1896. Identifying the right to privacy as "a personal and fundamental right," Congress found it "necessary and proper" to enact the Privacy Act "in order to protect the privacy of individuals identified in information systems maintained by Federal agencies." Ibid.
Congress explained that the "purpose of this Act is to provide certain safeguards for an individual against an invasion of personal privacy by requiring Federal agencies, except as otherwise provided by law, to," inter alia, "be subject to civil suit for any damages which occur as a result of willful or intentional action which violates any individual's rights under this Act." § 2(b)(6), ibid. (emphasis added). That statement is an explicit reference to suits brought under § 552a(g)(4); no other provision speaks to a civil suit based on "willful or intentional" agency misconduct. It signals unmistakably congressional recognition that the civil-remedies provision is integral to realizing the Act's purposes.
Reading "actual damages" to permit recovery for any injury established by competent evidence in the record—pecuniary or not—best effectuates the statute's basic purpose. Although some privacy invasions no doubt result in economic loss, we have recognized time and again that the primary form of injuries is nonpecuniary, and includes mental distress and personal humiliation. See Time, Inc. v. Hill, 385 U.S. 374, 385, n. 9, 87 S.Ct. 534, 17 L.Ed.2d 456 (1967) ("In the `right of privacy' cases the primary damage is the mental distress"); see also Gertz, 418 U.S., at 350, 94 S.Ct. 2997 ("[A]ctual injury" in defamatory falsehood cases "is not limited to out-of-pocket loss. Indeed, the more customary types of actual harm inflicted by defamatory falsehood include impairment of reputation and standing in the community, personal humiliation, and mental anguish and suffering"). Accord, 2 Dobbs § 7.1.(1), at 259
In interpreting the civil-remedies provision, we must not forget Congress enacted the Privacy Act to protect privacy. The majority's reading of "actual damages" renders the remedial provision impotent in the face of concededly unlawful agency action whenever the injury is solely nonpecuniary. That result is patently at odds with Congress' stated purpose. The majority, however, does not grapple with the ramifications of its opinion. It acknowledges the suggestion that its holding leads to absurd results as it allows individuals suffering relatively minor pecuniary losses to recover $1,000 while others suffering severe mental anguish to recover nothing. But it concludes that "there is nothing absurd about a scheme that limits the Government's Privacy Act liability to harm that can be substantiated by proof of tangible economic loss." Ante, at 1455. Perhaps; it is certainly within Congress' prerogative to enact the statute the majority envisions, namely one that seeks to safeguard against invasions of privacy without remedying the primary harm that results from invasions of privacy. The problem for the majority is that one looks in vain for any indication in the text of the statute before us that Congress intended such a result. Nowhere in the Privacy Act does Congress so much as hint that it views a $5 hit to the pocketbook as more worthy of remedy than debilitating mental distress, and the majority's contrary assumption discounts the gravity of emotional harm caused by an invasion of the personal integrity that privacy protects.
After today, no matter how debilitating and substantial the resulting mental anguish, an individual harmed by a federal agency's intentional or willful violation of the Privacy Act will be left without a remedy unless he or she is able to prove pecuniary harm. That is not the result Congress intended when it enacted an Act with the express purpose of safeguarding individual privacy against Government invasion. And it is not a result remotely suggested by anything in the text, structure, or history of the Act. For those reasons, I respectfully dissent.
The dissent's argument thus boils down to this: The text and purpose of the Privacy Act make it clear beyond any reasonable dispute that the term "actual damages," as used in the Act, means compensatory damages for all proven harm and not just damages for pecuniary harm. The dissent reasons that, because the Act seeks to prevent pecuniary and nonpecuniary harm, Congress must have intended to authorize the recovery of money damages from the Federal Government for both types of harm. This inference is plausible, but it surely is not unavoidable. The Act deters violations of its substantive provisions in other ways—for instance, by permitting recovery for economic injury; by imposing criminal sanctions for some violations, see 5 U.S.C. § 552a(i); and possibly by allowing for injunctive relief under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. §§ 702, 706; see Doe, supra, at 619, n. 1, 124 S.Ct. 1204 (noting that the absence of equitable relief in suits under § 552a(g)(1)(C) or (D) may be explained by the availability of such relief under the APA).
