Postal Service v. Konan · ¶43

Second, Konan argues that our interpretations of “miscar- riage” and “loss” run afoul of the presumption against sur- plusage.On our interpretation, she argues, many claims— including Konan’s here—will arise from both a “miscarriage” and a “loss” of mail, making one or the other redundant.To solve the surplusage, Konan proposes three nonoverlapping definitions: “Loss” covers “damage” to mail; “miscarriage” covers “what happens” to mail “when it leaves the USPS’s custody and ends up in the wrong place”; and “negligent transmission” covers “detention or delays of the mail while still in the USPS’s possession.”Brief for Respondent 9. Konan’s proposal is inconsistent with ordinary meaning, which shows that these terms were often used in an overlap- ping manner.See, e. g., Heinrich, 219 N. Y., at 4–6, 113 N. E., at 531–532 (describing “[t]he loss of the checks” that “miscarried in the…

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