Court Opinion

ID: 9728338
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:05:32.019533+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:47.848046
License: Public Domain

Hall, J.
(dissenting in part). I am in disagreement with that portion of the majority opinion which finds power in the Director of the Division on Civil Rights to make, in connection with the granting of specific relief and recompense of economic loss, “minor or incidental” awards of money damages to complainants for “humiliation” and “pain and suffering” (which I will refer to generally as damages *417for mental distress) caused by acts of discrimination. The majority finds, however, no legislative authorization to make such awards when the claimed consequential injury is severe and extensive.1
The power of the Division to award-damages is purely a question of legislative intent, here necessarily to be divined largely from the statutory language. In my view, an intent to authorize agency award of damages for mental distress in any amount — an important public policy matter2 — is so extremely doubtful that I am convinced the power should be denied unless and until the Legislature bestows it in plain and unmistakable terms. Burlington County Evergreen Park Mental Hospital v. Cooper, 56 N. J. 579, 599 (1970).
It must constantly be kept in mind that the Law Against Discrimination, N. J. 8. A. 10 :5-l et seq., and particularly, the remedy section, N. J. 8. A. 10:5-17, is designed to effectuate, by expeditious administrative action, speedy, spe*418cific relief to the individual complainant discriminated against and to prevent the discriminating party from engaging in such wrongful acts against others in the future. The agency is directed to investigate and prosecute proceedings on behalf of complainants to accomplish those objectives. The scheme is thus clearly not one to provide for a conventional law suit, with all its trappings and delays, before an administrative tribunal. Interpretation of the scope and extent of the remedy section must be reached in the light of these foundation principles. It calls for careful adherence in this regard to the limits imposed by the language of the legislation rather than a judicial effort to broaden the scope of the remedy section to convert the agency proceeding into a full fledged law suit —• a result bound to happen as soon as pecuniary damages for mental distress are permitted.
The majority relies most heavily on language in Jackson v. Concord Company, 54 N. J. 113 (1969), which held that the statute sufficiently indicated a delegation of power to the Director to award damages for economic, out-of-pocket loss resulting from forbidden discriminatory acts. The question was whether the agency had authority to go beyond specific relief and make any monetary award at all. What I said in that opinion must be read and considered in that context. The matter of damages beyond those for economic loss was not involved, was specifically reserved, and the rationale of the opinion was not directed to it. 54 N. J. at 128.
The basis for the decision to allow awards for economic loss was found in clues from the language, particularly that used in the remedy section, N. J. 8. A. 10 :5 — 17, which would have no purpose if recompense for economic loss was not intended. The analysis of these provisions is set forth at 54 N. J. at 126-128, and need not be here repeated. Suffice it now to say that the language of the section, to my belief, offers no clue that allowance of damages for mental suffering in any amount was at all intended.
Admittedly our Law Against Discrimination, as it presently exists, is a patchwork job and no model of clarity in *419many respects. It started ont in 1945 (L. 1945, c. 169) as a measure to prevent and eliminate practices of discrimination in employment because of race, creed, color, national origin or ancestry. It was patterned after a similar New York law, but has never contained the specific provision of that state’s enactment (N. Y. Executive Law § 297 (4) (c)) authorizing the “awarding of compensatory damages to the person aggrieved.” This continued omission is most significant to me.
The remedy section (L. 1945, c. 169, § 16, p. 596), obviously originally derived from the National Labor Relations Act of some years before (now 29 U. 8. G. A. § 160(c)), authorized in employment discrimination situations, as N. J. S. A. 10:5-17 still does today, cease and desist orders and “affirmative action, including, but not limited to, hiring, reinstatement or upgrading of employees, with or without back pay, or restoration to membership, in any respondent labor organization, ... as, in the judgment of the commissioner, will effectuate the purposes of this act, and include a requirement for report of the manner of compliance.” (Emphasis supplied). The italicized phrase was pointed to in Jackson, 54 N. J. at 127, as an indication of authority to recompense economic loss. Importantly, I believe, the United States Supreme Court has said that the similar language in the National Labor Relations Act did not empower the federal agency administering that statute to award recovery for consequential personal damages of victims of unfair labor practices. International Union, United Automobile, Aircraft and Agricultural Implement Workers of America v. Russell, 356 U. S. 634, 645-646, 78 S. Ct. 932, 2 L. Ed. 2d 1030, 1039 (1958).
As our statute was patched over the years by amendment to forbid other bases of discrimination and to cover places of public accommodation and housing as well as employment (see Jackson, 54 N. J. at 122, n. 3), parallel patching was done to various other sections of the law, including the remedv section, to include the expanded scope. But none of these changes gave any indication of intent to grant agency *420power to award damages'for other than economic loss. The last amendment to the remedy section (L. 1966, c. 17, § 7), quoted and referred to in Jachson, 54 N. J. at 137-138, amounts to only an effort to clarify the ascertainment of economic loss in non-employment situations.
The majority also relies on decisions in other states. I do not conceive of them as substantial authority in the light of our statutory, language. New York, represented by State Division of Human Rights v. Speer, 29 N. Y. 2d 555, 324 N. Y. S. 2d 297, 272 N. E. 2d 884 (1971), rested its result on the previously referred .to statutory language specifically empowering the award of “compensatory damages,” which was construed to include all except punitive damages. The Massachusetts statute, which was involved in Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination v. Franzaroli, 357 Mass. 112, 256 N. E. 2d 311 (1970), expressly authorized the award of damages in general terms up to a limit of $1,000. The result in Oregon, Williams v. Joyce, 4 Or. App. 482, 479 P. 2d 513 (1971), rests on reasoning no more persuasive to me than that of the majority here.
Since I find no power to award damages for mental distress, I do not reach the matter of the sufficiency of the proofs thereof in this case or the question of the excessiveness of the award.
I agree with the majority opinion on all other aspects of the case. I would, therefore, modify the judgment of the Appellate Division- as that opinion directs except as to the award of damages for mental suffering.
Judge Lewis joins in this opinion.

 It may be noted that the practicalities arising from a classification of power to make small awards, but not big ones, are so serious that one can properly feel the Legislature could not possibly have intended any such distinction. Apart from the matter of the figure at which the line is to be drawn, as to which the majority is silent, they must mean that, when there is a large claim for consequential personal damages, the aggrieved party has to bring a plenary suit in the courts for all the relief sought, at his own expense. See Gray v. Serruto Builders, Inc., 110 N. J. Super. 297 (Ch. Div. 1970). He will have to give up his right to the statutory administrative proceeding, prosecuted for him by the Division, with its perhaps more important attendant advantage of obtaining speedy specific relief from the discriminatory action. And he will have to make in advance the choice of which road to travel because N. J. S. A. 10:5-27 specifies that the administrative procedure “shall, while pending be exclusive” and that “the final determination therein shall exclude any other action, civil or criminal, based on the same grievance of the individual concerned.”

It is not inappropriate to mention that the questions of when a legal cause of action for mental distress should arise at all, what damages should be allowed, and how they should be proved and fixed have plagued courts for years on end. See Prosser, Torts (4th ed. 1971) § 12.