WASHINGTON − The Supreme Court on Feb. 24 kept the lid on lawsuits against the U.S. Postal Service for delivery problems, ruling against a Texas landlord who said the federal agency deliberately withheld her mail as a form of racial harassment.
The court, in a 5-4 opinion, said the immunity Congress gave the Postal Service from lawsuits seeking monetary damages covers acts alleged to be intentional.
The struggling Postal Service warned that without these protections, it could face a flood of lawsuits over its daily handling of 300 million mail pieces.
But the attorney for the landlord, Lebene Konan, said situations like hers – in which she and tenants did not get their mail delivered for years even after she filed dozens of complaints − are rare. Konan's attorney doubted allowing her suit to move forward would prompt a deluge of similar lawsuits, certainly not frivolous ones.
Writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas said the court did not decide whether all of the landlord's claims are barred by the ruling, just that the Postal Service can't be sued for intentionally not delivering the mail. The court sent the case back to the lower courts for further proceedings.
