University of Chicago Law Professor Samuel Bray's scholarship on equity and remedies played a prominent role in a Supreme Court opinion issued Thursday, with Justice Clarence Thomas citing six separate scholarly works by Bray in a concurring opinion in Sripetch v. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The case concerned whether the SEC may obtain “disgorgement”—a term used for various remedies requiring wrongdoers to surrender ill-gotten gains—without proving that investors suffered financial losses. At issue was whether the Securities and Exchange Commission, when it sues someone for a disgorgement remedy, must show that an investor victim lost money. The answer, the Court said, was no. Writing separately in concurrence, Justice Thomas agreed with the Court, but also argued that the statute authorizing the Commission to sue for “disgorgement” had classified that remedy as legal rather than equitable. Justice Thomas supported this position by drawing on Bray’s extensive scholarship on equity, restitution, and remedies.

Among the works Thomas cited were Bray’s chapter “Fiduciary Remedies” in The Oxford Handbook of Fiduciary Law; his casebook Ames, Chafee, and Re on Remedies, co-authored with Emily Sherwin; his article “Equity, Law, and the Seventh Amendment”; his book chapter “Punitive Damages Against Trustees?”; another article, “Getting Into Equity,” co-authored with Paul Miller; and his 2021 post at the Volokh Conspiracy blog called “The Changing Face of the SEC Restitution Remedy.”

Bray, the Walter Mander Research Scholar and Professor of Law, is one of the nation's leading scholars of equity, remedies, and restitution. His work has been cited repeatedly by courts, including the Supreme Court, in cases involving the historical foundations and modern application of equitable relief.