The United States Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on Tuesday that a federal law shielding the U.S. Postal Service from liability for lost or misdelivered mail also bars lawsuits alleging intentional misdelivery.
In U.S. Postal Service v. Konan, Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority, said the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) preserves the Postal Service’s immunity from claims arising out of the “loss, miscarriage, or negligent transmission” of mail. The Court concluded that the statute’s protections extend to mail that was intentionally misdelivered, not just negligently handled.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, joined by Justices Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. In her dissent, Sotomayor argued that the majority’s interpretation grants the Postal Service broader immunity than Congress intended.
“It is not the role of the Judiciary to supplant the choice Congress made because it would have chosen differently,” Sotomayor wrote.
The dispute arose from a long-running conflict in Euless, Texas, between landlord Lebene Konan and local postal workers. Konan sought to have her mail and that of her tenants delivered to a shared mailbox at her property. Postal workers instead frequently held the mail at the post office or returned it to senders, citing concerns that identification requirements for certain addressees had not been satisfied.
Konan ultimately filed suit against the U.S. Postal Service, two postal employees, and the United States. She alleged, among other claims, emotional distress and interference with her business, asserting that the mail issues were discriminatory and made it more difficult to attract and retain tenants.
The Supreme Court’s decision addressed only Konan’s claims against the Postal Service and the federal government under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which outlines when the United States may be sued for damages. The ruling did not resolve her other claims against individual postal employees.
The case asked the Supreme Court to resolve a split among federal appeals courts over the scope of the Federal Tort Claims Act’s “postal exception.” That provision shields the government from liability for claims “arising out of the loss, miscarriage, or negligent transmission of letters or postal matter.”
The federal government argued that the exception applies to Konan’s claims because the intentional nondelivery of mail qualifies as a “loss” or “miscarriage” under the statute. Konan countered that the exception applies only to negligent conduct and does not cover intentional acts.
In the decision, a majority of justices agreed with the government. Writing for the majority, Thomas concluded that the statutory terms encompass intentional failures to deliver mail.
Thomas said the ordinary meanings of “miscarriage” and “loss” support that interpretation. “Because a ‘miscarriage’ includes any failure of mail to arrive properly, a person experiences a miscarriage of mail when his mail is delivered to his neighbor, held at the post office, or returned to the sender—regardless of why it happened,” he wrote. Similarly, “[w]hen Congress enacted the FTCA, the ‘loss’ of mail ordinarily meant a deprivation of mail, regardless of how the deprivation was brought about.”
Thomas also briefly explained the scope of the U.S. Postal Service’s work, emphasizing that the postal exception was created to prevent the government from being overwhelmed by lawsuits related to inevitable mail-delivery issues.
“In 2024, the Postal Service’s more than 600,000 employees delivered more than 112 billion pieces of mail—over 300 million a day—to more than 165 million delivery points. Unsurprisingly, given this volume, not all mail arrives properly and on time,” he wrote.
In her dissenting opinion, Sotomayor rejected the majority’s interpretation of “loss” and “miscarriage,” contending that its “reading of the postal exception transforms, rather than honors, the exception Congress enacted.”
Congress could have made it clear that the postal exception was broad, Sotomayor wrote, but, instead, it isolated specific forms of misconduct: “loss,” miscarriage,” and “negligent transmission.” “By using ‘specificity’ over ‘generality,’ it follows that Congress intended for this exception” to be limited in scope, she wrote.
