Argument of Speaker
Mr. Speaker: Justice Kennedy has the opinion in No. 04-848, Dolan versus the United States Postal Service.
Argument of Justice Kennedy
Mr. Kennedy: As the Chief Justice indicates, this is our opinion in Dolan versus United States Postal Service.
Barbara Dolan alleged that the United States Postal Service left mail on her front porch at her residence and that that caused her to slip and fall.
She sued the Postal Service for resulting injuries.
The District Court and the Court of Appeals ordered her suit dismissed, and now Mrs. Dolan is the petitioner in this Court and she asks us to rule that the suit can proceed.
The Postal Service is an independent establishment of the Government of the United States.
That means that it enjoys immunity from suit unless the immunity has been waived.
The question here is whether there has been a waiver for suits of this type.
The case turns on provisions of the Federal Tort Claims Act.
The Act contains a broad waiver of immunity, but the waiver has some exceptions.
If one of the exceptions applies, then the immunity from suit has been retained.
The exception relevant to this case specifically applies to the Postal Service, and the question we must decide is how far that exception extends.
“By turns of the exception, immunity is retained,” which means suit is barred, “for claims arising out of a loss, miscarriage or negligent transmission of letters or postal matters”, and the key phrase for us here is the meaning of “negligent transmission”.
If considered in isolation, that term could embrace a wide range of negligent acts committed in the course of delivering mail.
This could include the creation of slip-and-fall hazards from leaving mail packets and parcels on the porch of a customer.
The Government urges us to adopt that interpretation.
It notes that each day, the Postal Service delivers some 660 million pieces of mail to as many as 142 million different points.
It is obviously concerned, then, with the potential for liability from slip-and-fall suits.
We think, though, that we must read “negligent transmission” in the statute in light of the more narrow phrase “loss or miscarriage of the mail”, phrases which precede it in the same statutory clause.
These words refer to destruction of the mail or delivering to the wrong address or delivering it late; and we do not write on a clean slate in this case.
In a decision by this Court in a case called Kosak v. United States, the Court held that this provision does not retain immunity for injuries resulting from auto accidents in which employees of the Postal Service were allegedly at fault.
Applying that reasoning here, we think the exception does not extend to this case; the exception as a general rule does not go beyond negligence causing mail to be lost or to arrive late or in damaged condition or at the wrong address.
In sum, Mrs. Dolan’s suit can proceed, and the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit must be reversed.
Justice Thomas has filed a dissenting opinion; Justice Alito took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
