Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-1501_8n5a.pdf
Page Number: 26

Cite as:  591 U. S. ____ (2020) 

3 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., 572 U. S. 663, 688, n. 1 (2014)).
The difficulty of defining this supposedly traditional rem-
edy is the first sign that it is not a historically recognized
equitable remedy.  In contrast, an accounting for profits, or 
accounting—a  distinct  form  of  relief  that  the  majority
groups with disgorgement—has a well-accepted definition:
It compels a defendant to account for, and repay to a plain-
tiff, those profits that belong to the plaintiff in equity.  Bray,
Fiduciary Remedies, in The Oxford Handbook of Fiduciary 
Law 449 (E. Criddle, P. Miller, & R. Sitkoff eds. 2019).  The 
definition of disgorgement, after today’s decision, is a rem-
edy  that  compels  each  defendant  to  pay  his  profits  (and 
sometimes, though it is not clear when, all of his codefend-
ants’  profits)  to  a  third-party  Government  agency  (which
sometimes, though it is not clear when, passes the money 
on to victims).  This remedy has no basis in historical prac-
tice. 

No  published  case  appears  to  have  used  the  term  “dis-
gorgement”  to  refer  to  equitable  relief  until  the  20th  cen-
tury.  Even then, the earliest cases use the word in a “non-
technical” sense, Brief for Law Professors as Amici Curiae 
22,  to  describe  the  action  a  defendant  must  take  when  a 
party is awarded a traditional equitable remedy such as an 
accounting for profits or an equitable lien.1  For example, in 
Byrd v. Mullinix, 159 Ark. 310, 251 S. W. 871 (1923), the 
Supreme Court of Arkansas affirmed the imposition of an 
equitable lien to prevent a debtor from “put[ting] the money 
in property which was itself beyond the reach of creditors, 
and to compel its disgorgement,” id., at 316–317, 251 S. W., 
at 872.  Likewise, in Armstrong v. Richards, 128 Fla. 561, 
175 So. 340 (1937), the Supreme Court of Florida referred
to “the right of the taxpayer to require an accounting from 

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1 An  equitable  lien  is  imposed  on  a defendant’s  property  “as  security 
for a claim on the ground that otherwise the former would be unjustly 
enriched.”  Restatement of Restitution §161, p. 650 (1936).