Texas realtor and licensed insurance agent Lebene Konan is awaiting a decision from the Supreme Court to sue the US Postal Service (USPS) after alleging that her designated carrier does not deliver mail to her rental properties because she is Black, CNN reports.
The high court agreed to hear arguments on April 21 in a case against the USPS after a lawsuit filed by Konan accused the post office, which covers two rental properties she owns outside of Dallas, of changing the lock on her post office box and then declining to deliver the mail to the property for close to three months. She argues it happened because the carrier and postmaster don’t “like the idea that a Black person” was the owner.
According to USA Today, the realtor stated that she had submitted over 50 complaints to the Postal Service before taking the case to court. She argues that the discrimination caused tenants to move out and others to miss bills, medicine, and other important pieces of mail.
A law from 1946 allows people to sue the federal government for damages if employees cause harm, injury, or property loss due to their negligence. However, the law includes several exceptions with claims arising from the “loss, miscarriage, or negligent transmission of letters or postal matter.” The question for the Supreme Court is whether the same exceptions apply to Konan’s situation.
While the district court sided against her, the appeals court said no touching on terms identified in the 1946 law, like “loss,” “miscarriage,” and “negligent transmission,” don’t apply to the complaint. The appeals court claimed, “There can be no ‘miscarriage’ where there was no attempt at carriage.”
After a Texas federal district court granted permission for the lawsuit to be dismissed at the federal government’s request due to the exception, the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision, allowing the lawsuit to proceed. The Trump administration has openly defended the case after the former Biden administration appealed the decision to the Supreme Court in September 2024.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) argues that the ruling would allow anyone to sue the USPS at any time their mail isn’t delivered on time, with claims that the delay was intentional. During the fiscal year that ended in 2023, USPS delivered more than 116 billion pieces of mail to over 166 million delivery points across state lines.
With these data points, the government claims that if courts embraced Konan’s position, it would result in USPS being added to thousands of lawsuits. “Congress enacted the postal exception specifically to protect the critical function of mail delivery from such disruptive litigation,” the government’s lawyers told the court.
Konan’s lawyers claim the opposite, stating refusal-to-deliver cases are rare, and allowing the lawsuit to continue wouldn’t cripple the agency.
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