Supreme Court to decide if Texas woman who says mail wasn’t delivered because she is Black can sue USPS

The Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear arguments in a case against the US Postal Service filed by a Texas woman who claims her carrier declined to deliver the mail to her rental properties because she is Black.

The Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear arguments in a case against the US Postal Service filed by a Texas woman who claims her carrier declined to deliver the mail to her rental properties because she is Black. Lebene Konan, a realtor and licensed insurance agent, alleged that the post office that covers two rental properties she owns in suburban Dallas changed the lock on her post office box and then declined to deliver the mail to the property for two to three months. Konan claimed that happened because the carrier and postmaster did not “like the idea that a Black person” owned them. A 1946 law generally allows people to sue the federal government for damages if employees cause injury or property loss through their negligence. But the law includes a number of exceptions, including for any claim raising from the “loss, miscarriage, or negligent transmission of letters or postal matter.” The question for the high court, then, is whether the exception applies to Konan’s situation. A federal district court in Texas granted the government’s request to dismiss the case, because of the exception. But the New Orleans-based 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision, allowing the lawsuit to proceed. The Biden administration appealed the decision to the Supreme Court in September, and the Trump administration has continued to defend against the suit. In the fiscal year that ended in 2023, the US Postal Service delivered more than 116 billion pieces of mail to more than 166 million delivery points across the nation, the government noted. If courts embraced Konan’s position, the government said, it could open the USPS up to a flood of lawsuits.