Email sending charges may be higher. It will probably cost you:
The United States Postal Service has proposed increasing the price of stamps from 73 cents to 78 cents.
scripps news
WASHINGTON – As the Supreme Court on Oct. 8 considered a woman’s claim that a postal worker waged a two-year campaign of racial harassment against her, one justice expressed concern about allowing a case like hers to proceed.
“What are the consequences if all these cases are filed and have to be litigated?” Justice Samuel Alito asked. “Will the first class letter cost $3 now?”
At the heart of the issue is whether the immunity Congress has given the U.S. Postal Service in mail delivery matters covers simple mistakes or alleged intentional actions.
Landlord claims postal worker refused to deliver mail
LeBene Conan, who rents out rooms in a house she owns in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, claims that postal workers refused to deliver mail to her and her tenants for two years because they didn’t like the idea of a black landlord renting to a white person.
As a result, some tenants were evicted and others missed receiving bills, medications and other important mail, she said.
Conan said he has filed more than 50 complaints with the Postal Service and asked for government intervention to oversee the Postal Service before seeking compensation in court.
Is e-mail denial of delivery protected?
A federal district judge said the lawsuit could not be filed in 2023. That’s because federal law protects the Postal Service from claims “resulting from the loss, miscarriage, or inadvertent transmission of letters or mail.”
But when Conan appeals, the New Orleans-based U.S. Fifth Circuit says there are no protections if a postal worker refuses to deliver the mail, and Conan wants a chance to prove that.
“If USPS never intentionally fails or refuses to deliver the mail to the intended recipient or mistakenly delivers the mail to a third party, then the mail is not ‘misdelivered’ because it was never delivered,” the appeals court said. “Since the miscarriage did not occur, Conan’s claim is not barred.”
Judges debate the meaning of “loss” and “miscarriage”
The federal government turned to the Supreme Court to resolve the issue.
Much of Wednesday’s discussion centered on the meaning of the words “loss” and “miscarriage.”
Chief Justice John Roberts said “loss” usually does not mean wrongdoing.
“If someone said, ‘I lost my mail,’ I didn’t immediately think someone had stolen it,” he said.
Frederick Lew, a Justice Department lawyer who represents the Postal Service, said “loss” doesn’t necessarily refer to an intentional act, although it could be.
But Justice Elena Kagan said the words “loss, miscarriage, or accidental infection” must be read in their own context. According to her, they all convey a similar meaning: something happened by mistake. “When I read this, it seems like the most natural thing for me to do,” she said of the law’s immunity protection.
Preventing a “flood” of lawsuits
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson then asked government lawyers why lawmakers wanted to protect the Postal Service from damages caused by intentional misconduct.
“Your argument shows that Congress intended to intentionally inoculate postal workers who tear up rent checks and Social Security checks on people’s porches, on the spot, in front of people,” she said.
Liu said Congress is trying to avoid a “flood of lawsuits.”
According to the government, the Postal Service delivers more than 300 million pieces of mail per day and receives 300,000 complaints a year from customers alleging fraud. Louis said if even 1% of these complaints ended up in litigation, the number of lawsuits filed against the Postal Service would quadruple.
“Things like intent are easy to assert, but hard to disprove,” he said of the difficulty of fighting a lawsuit.
Mr. Alito said many people may think the mail delivery issue was intentional, and tried to help Mr. Liu make that point.
“I didn’t tip my mailman on Christmas, so my mail didn’t arrive,” he gave as an example. “Or maybe my big dog ran up to the door and scared the mailman…or maybe I have some characteristic that the mailman doesn’t like.”
Did Congress want to give the USPS “wholesale” protection?
But Eesh Anand, a lawyer representing Konnan, said her situation – where she filed dozens of complaints and still didn’t receive any mail for two years – was rare.
And Anand pointed out that the government had similarly warned of devastating litigation in 2006, when the Supreme Court considered a case brought by a woman who tripped over mail left on her balcony. Although the courts sided with the injured women, the Postal Service was not inundated with lawsuits, she said.
“We know that Congress did not want the USPS to mass inoculate,” she said.
A decision in U.S. Postal Service v. Conan is expected by summer.
