Overview
- Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissenting alongside Justices Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
- The court held that the FTCA’s terms “loss” and “miscarriage” of mail include intentional nondelivery, extending sovereign immunity to such claims against the United States.
- The decision reverses the 5th Circuit and remands, leaving unresolved whether all of Konan’s claims are barred and allowing lower courts to address factual disputes and other legal theories.
- Government lawyers warned that allowing intentional-nondelivery suits would trigger a deluge of litigation given the Postal Service’s handling of more than 300 million pieces of mail daily and hundreds of thousands of annual complaints.
- Konan, a Black landlord in the Dallas–Fort Worth area, alleges postal employees withheld mail for years despite more than 50 complaints, causing tenants to miss bills and medications; the Justice Department has asserted a tenant-directory rule justified withholding.