Postal Service v. Konan · ¶78

The contemporaneous Postal Laws and Regulations from before the FTCA was enacted—the “backdrop” against which “Congress enacted the postal exception,” Brief for Petitioners 35—further undermine the majority’s interpreta- tion.For example, those regulations directed the Division of Stamps to make adjustments in “cases of loss, miscarriage, or detention of stamped supplies in transit.”Post Office Dept., Postal Law & Regs. §12.6 (1940 ed.).This suggests that when the stamped supplies were intentionally held back and not delivered (i. e., failed to arrive), “detention” was used instead of “miscarriage,” even though, on the majority’s reading, “miscarriage” would have sufficed.The regula- tions also directed postal employees to “hold” packages dropped off for “forwarding” if they contained “destructive mail matter,” to “notify the sender” of the “detention of the package,” and to let them know…

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