Court debates lost catalogs and delayed Christmas cards while hearing case on intentionally undelivered mail

In an argument session featuring competing definitions and colorful hypotheticals, the Supreme Court on Wednesday considered whether the U.S. Postal Service and federal government can be sued over an intentional failure to deliver the mail. While several justices expressed skepticism about the government’s claim that it’s shielded from such lawsuits, some appeared concerned about opening the door to a wave of disputes over lost packages or late Christmas cards.  

The case, U.S. Postal Service v. Konan, began when Lebene Konan, a landlady with two properties in Euless, Texas, realized that her mailbox key for one of those properties no longer worked. She alerted the post office, explaining that she typically collected the mail at the box and distributed it to her tenants. After proving that she owned the property, Konan was able to get a new key, but she continued to run into problems, like items being held at the post office or returned to the sender.

Konan estimates that she “filed more than 50 administrative complaints” before filing a lawsuit against two local postal workers, the U.S. Postal Service, and the United States for, among other things, damages related to her struggle to keep and find new tenants amid the mail delivery issues and emotional distress. She alleged that the workers had intentionally and wrongfully failed to deliver mail to her property as part of “a campaign of racial harassment” against her.

The government moved to dismiss Konan’s lawsuit. The Federal Tort Claims Act makes possible a variety of suits seeking damages from the government by waiving the United States’ sovereign immunity under circumstances in which a federal government employee, “if a private person, would be liable to the claimant in accordance with” local law. That said, it carves out a “postal exception,” which leaves sovereign immunity in place for claims “arising out of the loss, miscarriage, or negligent transmission of letters or postal matter.” The intentional failure to deliver mail, the government said, is covered by this exception.

A district court agreed with the government and dismissed Konan’s case. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit reversed in part, allowing the claims against the U.S. Postal Service and United States to move forward. Specifically, the 5th Circuit held that intentional nondelivery is not a “loss,” “miscarriage,” or “negligent transmission” of mail, because those terms don’t cover intentional acts.

In September 2024, the government appealed to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to clarify whether the terms “loss” or “miscarriage” in the postal exception cover intentional failure to deliver the mail. In April, the court agreed to take up the case.

As expected, much of Wednesday’s argument was spent debating what Congress meant to convey with the words “loss” and “miscarriage.” Several justices appeared to reject the government’s claim that “loss” should be defined broadly to include mail that was intentionally left at the post office. As Chief Justice John Roberts said, “a loss doesn’t typically convey … malfeasance involved.” “I mean, if I say ‘I lost my car,’ people aren’t going to think somebody stole his car. They’re going to think I forgot where it was,” he said.

Frederick Liu, an assistant to the U.S. solicitor general, fared better in discussions of “miscarriage,” although Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Neil Gorsuch questioned why, if Congress wanted to prevent nearly all lawsuits over the handling of mail, including suits over the intentional mishandling of mail, the postal exception doesn’t say something more explicit about how broadly it applies. 

Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito appeared most sympathetic to the government, with Kavanaugh observing at one point that a ruling for Konan might come “as a little bit of a surprise to Congress” and Alito repeatedly – and often humorously – predicting that many Americans will leap at the chance to sue the USPS over mail delivery problems. “So I don’t get my Christmas cards until three weeks after Christmas, and I can’t sue on the ground that it’s negligent, but if I say ‘Well, … the delivery person doesn’t like me for one reason or another, it was intentional,’ and then … I’m in court,” Alito said.

Liu agreed with Alito’s prediction, contending that a ruling for Konan may “quadruple” the number of lawsuits the USPS faces each year.

Easha Anand, representing Konan, disputed that claim, contending that it’s “rare” to experience the kind of long-term mistreatment that Konan experienced. She added that the government made a similar slippery slope argument when the court last heard a case on the postal exception and held that a woman could sue the USPS after tripping over mail that was left on her porch. That decision didn’t lead to an avalanche of new lawsuits over the past two decades, as the government predicted it would, Anand said.

Sotomayor and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson similarly claimed that people will still have to clear a high bar for allegations of intentional nondelivery to be plausible. They also warned against issuing a ruling that would immunize postal workers from lawsuits over intentional nondelivery under other circumstances, such as the destruction of mail-in ballots or Social Security checks.

The court’s decision is expected by early July, though it is likely to come earlier.