The Supreme Court agreed on April 21 to decide if a Texas woman who claims racial discrimination may sue the United States Postal Service (USPS) for not delivering mail.
The respondent, Lebene Konan, filed a tort and discrimination lawsuit against USPS, the United States government, and two USPS employees. A tort is a wrongful act or infringement of a right that gives rise to civil liability.
The brief alleged that the employees served “nearby properties owned by white landlords without incident, [and] they made it impossible for Ms. Konan or her tenants to receive mail.” They allegedly “targeted Ms. Konan because they did not ‘like the idea’ that a black person owned the properties and leased rooms to white people.”
Konan complained to the post office, and the USPS’s inspector general “confirmed that [she] owned the property” and made an order “that mail be delivered.” The brief alleged that an official countermanded the inspector general’s directive, “encouraging his subordinates to ignore the order,” and the “harassment campaign escalated.”
One USPS employee allegedly put notices on one of Konan’s mailboxes stating “the names of tenants to whom he was willing to deliver mail.” He is accused of often marking mail “undeliverable” when it was properly addressed to Konan or her tenants. When it came to his attention that Konan had a second property, the employee refused to deliver mail there as well, the brief alleged.
Konan said she tried to retrieve the undelivered mail, and local USPS employees allegedly did not cooperate. Konan filed more than 50 complaints with the postal service, but the alleged campaign of harassment continued, according to the brief.
Withholding mail violates federal law, and in this case, it drove away current and prospective tenants, “causing the value of Ms. Konan’s properties to decline and costing her rental income,” the brief said.
Konan sued in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, bringing claims under two equal protection statutes and the Federal Tort Claims Act. The act grants waivers in certain situations, allowing lawsuits against the federal government “under circumstances where the United States, if a private person, would be liable.”
The district court ruled against Konan in January 2023, determining that her claims were “barred by sovereign immunity,” according to the postal service’s petition.
Sovereign immunity is a legal doctrine that prevents governments from being sued in their own courts unless they consent to being sued.
The district court stated that the federal statute does not waive the federal government’s sovereign immunity in “any claim arising out of the loss, miscarriage, or negligent transmission of letters or postal matter,” the petition said.
Konan had argued the waiver language did not preclude her lawsuit because she alleged that “USPS intentionally and deliberately refused to deliver her mail,” saying the postal matter exception covers only negligent acts, as opposed to intentional torts, according to the petition.
The district court found that Konan’s claims under the Federal Tort Claims Act pertain to “personal [and] financial harms arising from nondelivery [of postal matter],” which means those claims are “barred by sovereign immunity.” The equal protection claim was also dismissed.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed in part in a March 2024 decision, upholding the dismissal of the equal protection claim but allowing the claim under the Federal Tort Claims Act to proceed.
The district court dismissed the Federal Tort Claims Act claims after it found Konan’s allegations came about as a result of “loss” or “miscarriage,” the circuit court said, according to the petition.
“We disagree,” the circuit court said. “This case does not fall into one of those limited situations” because “the postal workers’ actions were intentional and thus cannot constitute a ‘negligent transmission.’”
Then-Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar had urged the Supreme Court to grant the petition, arguing that the Fifth Circuit misinterpreted the postal exception.
The circuit court’s ruling is at odds with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dolan v. USPS (2006), as well as rulings by the First and Second Circuits.
The Supreme Court should take up the appeal because the Fifth Circuit’s decision “threatens to inflict substantial practical harms on USPS and the United States,” the petition said.
“USPS delivers more than 300 million pieces of mail every day on average,” and under the circuit court’s ruling, “any person whose mail is lost or misdelivered could bring a federal tort suit … so long as she alleges that a USPS employee acted intentionally.”
Congress wrote the postal exception “specifically to protect the critical function of mail delivery from such disruptive litigation,” the petition said.
Konan urged the Supreme Court not to accept the case in her brief.
The government is “wrong” to say the Fifth Circuit’s ruling “will unleash a torrent of litigation,” her brief said.
“But even if it were correct, a better vehicle—one where postal delivery is at the heart of the issue—will surely come along. At core, Ms. Konan’s case isn’t about the mail; it’s about racial discrimination. Withholding mail was just one way that USPS inflicted that harm,” the brief said.
The Supreme Court is expected to hear the case in its new term that begins in October.
