Postal Service v. Konan · ¶69

To reach its contrary result, the majority defines “loss” as any “deprivation of mail,” which it concludes captures all situations where the individual does not receive mail, no mat- ter the cause.Ante, at 401.To do so, however, the majority must shift away from a focus on harms that befall the mail to harms that befall Konan.The majority says that the postal exception encompasses three “kinds of harms, not kinds of actions by the postal workers.”Ante, at 403. The majority defines the first two terms, “miscarriage” and “negligent transmission,” to encompass “harms” to the mail. Yet, under the majority’s interpretation, “loss” is an entirely distinct kind of “harm.”That is because the mail does not “suffer a deprivation” in the same way that mail fails to ar- rive (miscarriage) or mail is damaged due to negligence (neg- ligent transmission).The only way “loss” could mean a “deprivation” is…

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