Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-1501_8n5a.pdf
Page Number: 10

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

7 

Opinion of the Court 

the same time courts recognized that the wrongdoer should
not profit “by his own wrong,” they also recognized the coun-
tervailing  equitable  principle  that  the  wrongdoer  should
not be punished by “pay[ing] more than a fair compensation
to the person wronged.”  Tilghman v. Proctor, 125 U. S. 136, 
145–146 (1888).

Decisions from this Court confirm that a remedy tethered
to a wrongdoer’s net unlawful profits, whatever the name, 
has been a mainstay of equity courts.  In Porter v. Warner 
Holding Co., 328 U. S. 395 (1946), the Court interpreted a 
section of the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942 that en-
compassed a “comprehensiv[e]” grant of “equitable jurisdic-
tion.”  Id., at 398.  “[O]nce [a District Court’s] equity juris-
diction has been invoked” under that provision, the Court 
concluded, “a decree compelling one to disgorge profits . . . 
may properly be entered.”  Id., at 398–399. 

Subsequent cases confirm the “ ‘protean character’ of the 
profits-recovery  remedy.”  Petrella  v.  Metro-Goldwyn-
Mayer,  Inc.,  572  U. S.  663,  668,  n. 1  (2014).   In  Tull  v. 
United  States,  481  U. S.  412  (1987),  the  Court  described 
“disgorgement of improper profits” as “traditionally consid-
ered  an  equitable  remedy.”  Id.,  at  424.    While  the  Court 
acknowledged  that  disgorgement  was  a  “limited  form  of 
penalty”  insofar  as  it  takes  money  out  of  the  wrongdoer’s
hands,  it  nevertheless  compared  disgorgement  to  restitu-
tion that simply “ ‘restor[es] the status quo,’ ” thus situating 
the remedy squarely within the heartland of equity.  Ibid.2 
—————— 

2 The dissent acknowledges that this Court has “referred to disgorge-
ment as an equitable remedy in some of its prior decisions.”  Post, at 6 
(citing Feltner v. Columbia Pictures Television, Inc., 523 U. S. 340, 352 
(1998)).  While the dissent attempts to discount those cases for having 
“merely  referred  to  the  term”  only  “in  passing,”  post,  at  6,  those  cases 
expressly “characterized as equitable . . . actions for disgorgement of im-
proper profits” in analyzing whether certain remedies were traditionally
available in equity, Feltner, 523 U. S., at 352 (citing Teamsters v. Terry, 
494 U. S. 558, 570 (1990) (“characteriz[ing] damages as equitable where
they are restitutionary, such as in ‘action[s] for disgorgement of improper