Supreme Court rules you can’t sue USPS — even if they mishandle your mail on purpose

Court sides with USPS in 5-4 ruling

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on Feb. 24 that the U.S. Postal Service cannot be sued for damages even when employees deliberately refuse to deliver mail.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion in U.S. Postal Service v. Konan.

Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito, Kavanaugh, and Barrett joined him. Justice Sotomayor dissented, joined by Justices Kagan, Gorsuch, and Jackson.

The case started with a Texas landlord who says postal workers withheld her mail for two years.

A 1946 law sits at the center

The Federal Tort Claims Act is a 1946 law that lets Americans sue the federal government when employees cause them harm.

But the law includes what’s called a “postal exception,” which shields the government from claims tied to lost or mishandled mail.

The big question here: does that shield also cover postal workers who withhold mail on purpose? The majority said yes, ruling that the words “loss” and “miscarriage” in the law cover intentional acts too.

A Texas landlord lost mail for years

Lebene Konan is a real estate agent and landlord who owns two rental properties in Euless, Texas, near Dallas-Fort Worth.

Starting in May 2020, Konan alleged two postal workers deliberately stopped delivering mail to her properties. She said they changed the lock on her mailbox without telling her.

When she called the post office, staff told her she wouldn’t get a new key until she proved she owned the property. Even after she did, Konan alleged the problems kept going.

Konan alleged racial motivation behind it

Konan, who is Black, alleged the postal workers targeted her because they objected to a Black woman owning multiple properties and renting rooms to white tenants.

According to her lawsuit, the workers marked her mail as undeliverable and sent it back. These are allegations that have not been proven in court.

The Supreme Court did not rule on whether racial discrimination happened. It only decided whether USPS could be sued under the Federal Tort Claims Act.

Missed mail cost her tenants and income

Konan and her tenants allegedly missed important mail, including bills, medications, credit card statements, and car titles.

Some tenants moved out because they couldn’t receive their mail, which cost Konan rental income. She filed dozens of complaints with postal officials before turning to the courts.

In January 2022, she sued the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act. The case worked its way up through the federal system from there.

Appeals courts disagreed, so the Supreme Court stepped in

Before this ruling, federal appeals courts around the country disagreed on the legal question at the heart of the case.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans had sided with Konan, ruling that the postal exception only covered accidents, not intentional acts.

But every other appeals court that looked at similar cases sided with USPS.

The Supreme Court took the case to settle that disagreement, which legal experts call a circuit split.

Thomas warned of a flood of lawsuits

Thomas wrote that because postal workers interact with the public so often, allowing these lawsuits would put a heavy burden on the government and courts.

The government noted that USPS delivered more than 116 billion pieces of mail in fiscal year 2023 to more than 166 million delivery points.

The Trump administration warned that ruling for Konan could open the door to a wave of lawsuits against the already cash-strapped Postal Service.

The Biden administration had originally asked the court to take the case.

Sotomayor pushed back hard in dissent

Sotomayor argued the postal exception was created for accidents, not deliberate acts. She wrote that the majority gave USPS far more legal protection than Congress ever intended.

Even if ruling for Konan meant more lawsuits, Sotomayor argued, that alone wouldn’t give the court authority to rewrite what Congress passed.

Justice Gorsuch, a conservative appointee, broke with the other Republican-appointed justices to join the liberal dissent, making this an unusual lineup.

Court sent the case back, but left a door open

The court threw out the Fifth Circuit’s ruling and sent the case back to the lower court. But it said it did not decide whether all of Konan’s claims fall under the postal exception.

Some of her claims may still survive depending on how the lower court applies the ruling.

Konan’s separate discrimination claims against individual postal workers under civil rights laws had already been dismissed by lower courts and were not part of this case.

What does this mean if your mail goes missing

Under this ruling, if a postal worker deliberately refuses to deliver your mail, you likely cannot sue the Postal Service for damages in federal court.

But Americans may still have other options, like filing complaints with the USPS Inspector General or reporting mail theft as a federal crime.

In some cases, people could pursue claims against individual employees rather than the agency itself.

Legal observers have raised questions about the ruling’s effects on the security of mail-in ballots ahead of future elections.

The 5-4 split shows how close this was

The one-vote margin shows the justices were closely divided on what the law’s text means. The majority relied on historical dictionaries and old newspaper usage to interpret “loss” and “miscarriage” broadly.

The dissent argued that the plain, everyday meaning of those words doesn’t include deliberate acts.

Gorsuch’s joining the three liberal justices signals that this case came down to legal interpretation, not the typical political lines people expect from the court.

Government accountability takes a hit

The Federal Tort Claims Act has been the main way Americans can sue the federal government since 1946. This ruling narrows one path to holding the government accountable when postal workers cause harm on purpose.

Supporters of the decision say it protects a cash-strapped agency from costly litigation. Critics say it leaves Americans without a real legal remedy when government employees deliberately cause them harm.

Congress could change the law, but no such legislation has been introduced.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

Read more from this brand:

• Court ruling boosts USPS immunity as consumers complain about missing mail
• Trump’s Swiss tariff story may have given his Supreme Court opponents a gift
• Trump wins big: Court rules ICE can detain immigrants without bail