Opinion ID: 2162170
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Availability of punitive damages as a matter of law

Text: Daka first asserts that the trial court erred as a matter of law because punitive damages may not be awarded under the DCHRA for a hostile environment claim based on age-related comments.... Despite our decision in Arthur Young & Co. v. Sutherland, supra , which held without qualification that punitive damages are available in civil actions under the DCHRA, 631 A.2d at 372, Daka contends that this holding does not necessarily extend to claims of age discrimination since the cause of action in Sutherland, a claim of sex discrimination, could have also been brought under Title VII. Daka asserts that because the Sutherland decision made no mention ... of what remedies might be available for age discrimination claims, and because the DCHRA is substantially patterned after federal law (which does not permit an award of punitive damages for age discrimination claims), [22] the trial court erred in permitting the jury even to consider an award of punitive damages. We emphatically reject this narrow reading of Sutherland. In Sutherland this court, after examining the legislative history of the DCHRA, concluded that the legislature had specifically patterned the statute after both Title VII (which did not then allow punitive damages [23] ) and the predecessor of 42 U.S.C. § 1981 (the Civil Rights Act of 1866, as amended in 1870, which did allow punitive damages). Id. at 370-372. Given the legislative history of the DCHRA and the broad statutory language [in D.C.Code § 1-2556(b)] allowing the court to award `such relief as it deems appropriate,' id. at 372, we held in Sutherland that the Council of the District of Columbia, in enacting the DCHRA, intended to include punitive damages in the arsenal of available remedies for discrimination. Id. at 371. Contrary to Daka's contention, there is nothing in the holding of Sutherland to suggest that it was limited solely to sex discrimination claims. Subsequent cases arising under the DCHRA have drawn no such distinction. See Reese v. United States, 24 F.3d 228, 232 (Fed.Cir.1994) (gender discrimination and sexual harassment); Shepherd v. American Broadcasting Cos., 862 F.Supp. 486, 500 (D.D.C.1994) (racial and sexual discrimination), vacated on other grounds, 314 U.S.App. D.C. 137, 62 F.3d 1469 (1995). Daka's attempt to bolster its argument by analogizing the DCHRA to the ADEA must fail because the ADEA specifically limits its enforcement, see 29 U.S.C. § 626(b), while the DCHRA does not. We are convinced that an award of punitive damages in an appropriate case under the DCHRA would serve the statute's broader purpose of eliminating discrimination in society. Holt v. Life Care Services Corp., 121 Daily Wash. L. Rptr. 1517, 1522 (D.C.Super.Ct.1993). Accordingly, to dispel any lingering doubts, we now explicitly hold that punitive damages are available in all discrimination cases under the DCHRA, subject only to the general principles governing any award of punitive damages. Sutherland, 631 A.2d at 372 (citation omitted).