by Misty Severi
The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the federal law that shields the United States Postal Service from being sued for missing or lost mail also means the federal service cannot be sued if it intentionally refuses to deliver specific mail.
The case stems from allegations by a Texas landlord that her mail was intentionally withheld by USPS for two years, and claims she was racially discriminated against because she is black.
The Supreme Court sided with USPS in a split 5-4 ruling, with Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch joining his three liberal counterparts in the dissent, according to the Associated Press.
Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority, argued the federal law that protects the service from lawsuits over missing, lost and undelivered mail includes “the intentional nondelivery of mail.”
“The United States enjoys sovereign immunity and cannot be sued without its consent. By means of the Federal Tort Claims Act, Congress waived that sovereign immunity for certain tort suits based on the conduct of Government employees,” Thomas stated.
“But, in the provision at issue in this case, Congress retained sovereign immunity for a wide range of claims about mail. Specifically, the FTCA’s postal exception retains sovereign immunity for all claims “arising out of the loss, miscarriage, or negligent transmission of letters or postal matter,” Thomas wrote. “This case concerns whether this exception applies when postal workers intentionally fail to deliver the mail. We hold that it does.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor argued in the dissent that the federal law does not protect actions that were “driven by malicious reasons.”
Texas landlord Lebene Konan filed the lawsuit under the 1946 Federal Tort Claims Act, which allows Americans to sue the government in certain situations. Konan claimed she lost rental income because residents moved out after USPS failed to deliver important mail such as bills, medications and car titles to the property.
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Misty Severi is a reporter for Just the News. Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of The Star News Network and contributed to this story.
If the USPS can’t be sued to be held accountable for not doing the job properly (or at all) that they were paid for then they have been given a license to steal and should not be in business at all.