penalty
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 385 U.S. 511 - Spevack v. Klein · 1967Most cited · 1,523 citing opinions
Fifth Amendment
penalty' is not restricted to fine or imprisonment. It means...the imposition of any sanction which makes assertion of the Fifth Amendment privilege 'costly.
How the Supreme Court has restated “penalty”
Each Supreme Court definition of “penalty,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “penalty”
Court decisions citing the 10 opinions that defined “penalty” — 5,371 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 10 definitions, chronological · 1822–1967
- ORIGINAL
In general, a sum of money in gross, to be paid for the non-performance of an agreement, is considered as a penalty, the legal operation of which is, to cover the damages which the party, in whose favour the stipulation is made, may have sustained from the breach of contract by the opposite party. It will not of course be considered as liquidated damages; and it will be incumbent on the party who claims them as such, to show that they were so considered by the contracting parties.
The penal and remedial provisions are therefore distinct and cannot be confounded. The term 'penalty' involves the idea of punishment for the infraction of the law, and is commonly used as including any extraordinary liability to which the law subjects a wrongdoer in favor of the person wronged, not limited to the damages suffered. ... It is very clear that the public wrong is punished by the fines and punishment prescribed, that the private injuries inflicted are to be redressed by civil suit, and the amount of recovery is determined by the extent of the injury received and the elements constituting it.
distinguished from damages
A penalty is a means of punishment
an exaction imposed by statute as punishment for an unlawful act
Penalty' is a term of varying and uncertain meaning. There are penalties recoverable in vindication of the public justice of the state. There are other penalties designed as reparation to sufferers from wrongs.
Where, in addition to the normal and ordinary tax fixed by law, an additional sum is to be collected by reason of conduct of the taxpayer violative of the law, and this additional sum is grossly disproportionate to the amount of the normal tax, the conclusion must be that the purpose is to impose a penalty as a deterrent and punishment of unlawful conduct.
distinguished from tax
The distinction between penalty as a fixed ad valorem amount taking no account of time, and interest which does depend on time, is persuasive that [the word 'penalty' in the Bankruptcy Act] will bear a like differentiation from interest.
The underlying theory of that penalty is that it is a punishment or deterrent and not a revenue-raising device; unlike a tax, it does not rest on the basic necessity of the Government to collect a carefully estimated sum of money by a particular date in order to meet its anticipated expenditures.
statutory
an exaction of punishment for a breach which could produce no possible damage has long been deemed oppressive and unjust
as distinguished from liquidated damages