Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-1501_8n5a.pdf
Page Number: 31.0

8 

LIU v. SEC 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

tice.  As the majority explains, the SEC is expressly author-
ized  to  impose  “ ‘disgorgement’ ”  in  its  in-house  tribunals. 
Ante,  at  13  (quoting  15  U. S. C.  §77h–1(e)).    It  is  unclear 
whether  the  majority’s  new  restrictions  on  disgorgement
will apply to these proceedings as well.  If they do not, the
result will be that disgorgement has one meaning when the 
SEC goes to district court and another when it proceeds in-
house. 

More  fundamentally,  by  failing  to  recognize  that  the
problem  is  disgorgement  itself,  the  majority  undermines 
our entire system of equity.  The majority believes that in-
sistence on the traditional rules of equity is unnecessarily 
formalistic, ante, at 3, n. 1, but the Founders accepted fed-
eral equitable powers only because those powers depended 
on traditional forms.  The Constitution was ratified on the 
understanding  that  equity  was  “a  precise  legal  system” 
with  “specific  equitable  remed[ies].”    Missouri  v.  Jenkins, 
515  U. S.  70,  127  (1995)  (THOMAS,  J.,  concurring).  “Alt-
hough courts of equity exercised remedial ‘discretion,’ that
discretion allowed them to deny or tailor a remedy despite 
a demonstrated violation of a right, not to expand a remedy
beyond  its  traditional  scope.”  Trump,  585  U. S.,  at  ___ 
(THOMAS, J., concurring) (slip op., at 5).  The majority, while 
imposing some limits, ultimately permits courts to continue 
expanding equitable remedies.  I would simply hold that the 
phrase  “equitable  relief ”  in  §78u(d)(5)  does  not  authorize 
disgorgement. 

II 
After  holding  that  disgorgement  is  equitable  relief,  the
majority remands for the lower courts to reconsider the dis-
gorgement order in this case.  If the majority is going to ac-
cept  “disgorgement”  as  an  available  remedy,  it  should  at
least  limit  the  order  to  be  consistent  with  the  traditional 
rules of equity.  First, the order should be limited to each