USPS v. Konan (24-351)

argument 24-351

USPS v. Konan

Supreme Court of the United States 1h 6m 8 speakers 8 chapters transcribed 1 month ago official recording ↗

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What is the core issue the government raises about the postal exception to the FTCA?

John G. Roberts 0:00

Our argument next in Case 24351, United States Postal Service v. Conant. Mr. Liu?

Unknown 0:07

Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court, the postal exception to the Federal Tort Claims Act preserves the United States' immunity for any claim arising out of the loss, miscarriage, or negligent transmission of mail. Respondent alleges that her mail didn't reach its destination because postal employees intentionally withheld the mail and returned it to sender. That allegation falls within the postal exception for two reasons. First, respondent alleges a miscarriage of mail. When Congress enacted the FTCA in 1946, miscarriage had a specific meaning in the mail context. It meant the failure of something sent to arrive or to be carried properly. Indeed, pre-FTCA decisions used miscarriage to describe the facts alleged here, mail that wasn't delivered because it was intentionally returned to sender.

Unknown 1:00

Second, the respondent alleges the loss of mail. Her own complaint uses the word loss, and she doesn't dispute that she alleges a loss for purposes of the FTCA's sovereign immunity waiver. There's no reason to give loss a different meaning in the postal exception. In fact, the presumption of consistent usage, contemporaneous dictionaries, and pre-FTCA decisions all support reading loss to have the same meaning. Respondent's claims, therefore, satisfy two out of the postal exceptions three prongs, which is no surprise given that loss and miscarriage were understood to be overlapping terms when Congress enacted the FTCA. Respondents contrary view that our claims satisfy none of the exceptions prongs can't be reconciled with that historical understanding or with Congress's belt and suspenders approach to protecting postal operations from disruptive damages suits.

Unknown 1:57

I welcome the court's questions.

Clarence Thomas 1:59

Mr. Liu, what should we do if we find ourselves in equipoise on this?

Unknown 2:07

Well, I would hope that there were enough votes that there was a judgment as to whether the facts here fall within the exception, even if there's some disagreement about which particular prong it fell in and that that bottom line judgment would control the disposition.

Clarence Thomas 2:27

Did we give any special weight because this is a waiver of sovereign immunity?

Unknown 2:32

Well, this court in Dolan rejected the notion that the exception should be interpreted differently because it implicates a waiver of sovereign immunity. We haven't taken issue with that here. We do think if there is a tiebreaker sort of canon at play. It is the canon that rules that govern jurisdictional issues, and sovereign immunity, of course, is a jurisdictional issue, that those rules should be made as simple as possible. And in our view, we've submitted the most simple rule. It's simply the rule this Court articulated on page 489 of Dolan, which is that injuries arising directly or consequentially from the mail not arriving at all or from the mail arriving late or damaged or to the wrong address, fails to get to the right address.

Unknown 3:27

Those are the types of injuries that are covered, and it doesn't extend any further.

John G. Roberts 3:31

But loss doesn't typically convey, I mean, technically I suppose it can, 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 or something like that. In other words, it doesn't say something bad has happened other than, you know, your own, you know, fact of paying attention to something. If somebody said I lost the mail, I would not think necessarily, I wouldn't think right away somebody stole it.

Unknown 4:04

Well, our submission, Mr. Chief Justice, isn't that loss necessarily encompasses malfeasance or intentionally conduct intentional misconduct just that it can refer to it and and we know it can refer to to both intentional or unintentional conduct because for one thing congress used it that way in section 1346 b1 which is at the ftca's principal provision the provision that respondent has to get through just to be able to assert a claim congress used the phrase loss of property and then made clear that those losses encompass