Postal Service v. Konan · ¶68

Turn, then, to “loss.”As the Government acknowledged in its petition for certiorari, “loss” is ordinarily understood to capture unintentional conduct.Pet. for Cert. 14; see also Webster’s New International Dictionary 1460 (2d ed. 1934) (defining “loss” as an “[a]ct or fact of losing . . . esp[ecially], unintentional parting with something of value”).For good reason: As the Fifth Circuit observed below, “no one inten- tionally loses something.”96 F. 4th 799, 802 (2024).People lose their keys when they misplace them, not when they give them to their children.People lose their mail when it gets stuck behind a drawer, not when they intentionally throw it away.If someone said that they “lost” their car, no one would think it was stolen, only that the person forgot where they had parked it.The same is true when the Postal Serv- ice loses someone’s mail.The reason is an error, not deliber- ate…

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