WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans cannot sue the U.S. Postal Service even if employees intentionally refuse to deliver mail, a divided Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.
The judges ruled 5-4 against Lebene Konan, a Texas landlord who claimed her mail was intentionally withheld for two years. Conan, who is black, claimed racial bias played a role in the postal employee’s actions.
Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the five-conservative majority, said federal law generally protects the Postal Service from lawsuits over lost, missing and undelivered mail, which includes “intentional failure to deliver mail.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent that while the protections against lawsuits are broad, they do not apply when a decision not to deliver mail is made “in bad faith.” Justice Neil Gorsuch joined three of his liberal colleagues in dissenting.
President Donald Trump’s Republican administration has warned that the ruling against Conen would lead to a flood of similar lawsuits against the cash-strapped Postal Service.
Conen, who is also a real estate agent and insurance agent, claims two employees at a Euless, Texas, post office intentionally failed to deliver mail belonging to her and her tenants because, she claimed, they didn’t like that she was black and owned multiple properties.
According to court documents, the dispute began when Conan discovered that a mailbox key to one of her rental properties had been changed without her knowledge, preventing her from collecting and distributing tenants’ mail from the mailbox. When she contacted the local post office, she was told she would not receive new keys or regular deliveries until she proved she owned the property. She did so, but problems with the mail persisted despite instructions from the U.S. Postal Service Inspector General that the mail be delivered, the documents say.
Xiaonan said employees marked some mail as undeliverable or returned it to the sender. The lawsuit alleges that Conan and her tenants failed to receive important mail such as bills, medications and car titles. Xiaonan also claimed that she lost rental income because some tenants moved out due to the situation.
After dozens of complaints to postal officials, Conan eventually filed suit under the Federal Tort Claims Act of 1946, which allows some lawsuits against the government. The case focused on the scope of the law’s special postal exemptions.
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