Postal Service v. Konan
The Supreme Court ruled 5–4 that the federal law shielding the government from mail-related lawsuits applies even when postal workers deliberately withhold someone's mail — not just when the problem stems from an accident or carelessness.
The decision closes the courthouse door to people seeking money damages from the federal government for intentional mail misconduct by postal employees, resolving a disagreement among lower federal courts over how broad that legal shield is.
How it got here: A federal trial court dismissed Konan's lawsuit under the postal exception; the Fifth Circuit reversed; the Postal Service asked the Supreme Court to step in and the Court agreed to resolve a split among federal appeals courts.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Lebene Konan, a landlord in Euless, Texas, alleged that local postal workers — motivated by racial animus — spent years deliberately stopping mail delivery to her two rental properties. Workers changed the name on her mailbox without her consent, returned her tenants' mail as undeliverable, and refused to release held mail to her. She lost tenants and rental income as a result. She filed state-law tort claims — including conversion, nuisance, and intentional infliction of emotional distress — seeking damages from the federal government.
The question before the Court
Can someone sue the federal government when postal workers intentionally refuse to deliver their mail, or does a law shielding the government from mail-related lawsuits block those claims too?
The Court's answer
Yes — the Court ruled that the Federal Tort Claims Act's postal exception bars lawsuits against the government for intentional nondelivery of mail, not just accidental or negligent mail problems. The exception covers any claim "arising out of the loss, miscarriage, or negligent transmission" of mail, and both "miscarriage" and "loss," as those words were ordinarily understood in 1946 when Congress enacted the law, encompass deprivations of mail regardless of whether the cause was an accident or deliberate wrongdoing.
The Court found that "miscarriage" of mail meant any failure of mail to reach its intended destination — including when workers deliberately held or returned it — and that "loss" of mail meant any deprivation, whether caused by carelessness or intentional withholding. Neither word, as used by ordinary speakers at the time, was limited to unintentional conduct. The Court also held that the word "negligent" in the phrase "negligent transmission" modifies only that one term and cannot be read to limit the other two.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
People whose mail is intentionally withheld or diverted by postal workers — whether from racial bias, personal grudges, or other deliberate misconduct — cannot sue the federal government in tort court for those injuries. They are left to exhaust administrative complaint channels or pursue other limited remedies, even in cases of alleged malicious misconduct by postal employees.
What changes now
The case returns to the lower courts, which must now decide whether each of Konan's specific claims — nuisance, tortious interference, conversion, and intentional infliction of emotional distress — is barred by the postal exception, and which of her legal arguments she properly raised below. The Supreme Court's ruling sets the controlling standard (intentional withholding is covered) but deliberately leaves those remaining questions for the Fifth Circuit and, if necessary, the trial court to resolve.
What this does not decide
The Court explicitly declined to decide whether every one of Konan's individual claims is actually barred by the postal exception, or which of her legal arguments she preserved below — leaving those questions open for the lower courts on remand. The ruling also does not address Konan's discrimination claims, which were decided separately and not before the Court.
Concurrences and dissents
How the Justices voted
Majority (5). Justice Thomas (author), joined by Justice Roberts, Justice Alito, Justice Kavanaugh, and Justice Barrett.
Dissent (4). Justice Sotomayor (author), joined by Justice Kagan, Justice Gorsuch, and Justice Jackson.
Dissent — Justice Sotomayor
Justice Sotomayor argued that the postal exception was designed to cover a specific and limited set of mail-related misconduct — negligent and inadvertent failures — not deliberate wrongdoing by postal employees. In her view, 'loss' in ordinary usage implies unintentional parting with something, and 'miscarriage' similarly connotes inadvertence, not malicious refusal to deliver. She also argued that reading these terms to cover intentional misconduct drains Congress's deliberate choice of the word 'negligent' before 'transmission' of any meaning. She would have affirmed the Fifth Circuit and allowed Konan's claims to proceed. Read the full dissent →
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court's starting point was ordinary meaning at the time of enactment: statutory terms are read according to the meanings they carried when Congress enacted them. Because Congress passed the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) in 1946, the Court asked how ordinary speakers understood 'loss,' 'miscarriage,' and 'negligent transmission' of mail around that time.
- On 'miscarriage': contemporaneous dictionaries consistently defined it as the failure of mail to reach its destination, with no restriction to unintentional failures. The Court also found that ordinary speakers used 'miscarriage' to describe mail problems caused by deliberate acts — including stolen mail pouches and burned letters — so intentional withholding qualified.
- On 'loss': the Court found that contemporaneous dictionaries defined it as a deprivation of mail, regardless of how the deprivation came about. Pre-1946 cases and news accounts routinely described mail stolen by carriers as 'lost,' confirming that intentional conduct could produce a 'loss' under the statute. Konan's conversion claim — alleging the Postal Service wrongfully took possession of her mail — fell squarely within this definition.
- The Court rejected the argument that the word 'negligent' in 'negligent transmission' implicitly narrows the other two terms to cover only inadvertent conduct. Under settled interpretive rules, a modifier attaches only to the word it immediately precedes; 'negligent' was placed before 'transmission' to keep that broad term focused on mail-delivery problems, not to signal that Congress intended to limit 'miscarriage' and 'loss' to accidents.
- The Court also dismissed the surplusage objection — that reading 'miscarriage' and 'loss' broadly makes them overlap and renders one redundant. In Dolan v. Postal Service (the Court's prior interpretation of this same exception), the Court had already read these terms as substantially overlapping. The canon against surplusage is subordinate to the cardinal rule that courts honor the words Congress actually used, and Congress likely chose broad, overlapping terms precisely to keep a wide range of mail-delivery complaints out of court.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Dolan v. Postal Service (546 U.S. 481)
The Court applied Dolan's framework for interpreting the postal exception and treated its prior reading as controlling.