USPS Update on Court Cases
Steve Hutkins at Save the Post Office
Another federal court has ruled against the Postal Service. The United States Postal Service is now 0 for 6.
In the case of Richardson v Trump, Judge Emmet Sullivan has ordered a preliminary injunction putting limits on postal operations in the run-up to the election. (Sullivan had also issued a preliminary injunction in Vote Forward v DeJoy.)
In his Opinion Sullivan writes,
“The Court shall grant Plaintiffs’ request to ‘restore overtime pay’ and to ‘make all late mail deliveries instead of letting mail be delayed or go undelivered.’”
Sullivan stopped short of ordering the Postal Service to returning operations to the status quo as of January 1, which would have meant restoring the 700 sorting machines that have been removed. Sullivan also rejected the plaintiffs’ request that the Court appoint a “special master” to supervise implementation of the Court’s Order.
Late yesterday Judge Victor Marrero issued an order in Jones concerning the Guidance Memorandum the parties have been trying to agree on. The order says,
“The Court is persuaded that the appropriate course is to adopt, in substantial part, the Government’s latest proposal.”
This proposed version of the Memorandum is here. There are still two areas that need to get worked out. Both involve the wording on extra delivery and collection trips.
Update: The parties in Jones have finally worked out the wording for the Supplemental Guidance Document. You can see it here.
DeJoy has not actually had any noticeable impact upon mail delivery in my zip code. That may be because civil service sandbagging is a time honored tradition in my part of the country. Downsizing,outsourcing, and layoffs have dominated the civil service worker’s occupational landscape here for decades. All that retained workers (myself a VA state gov retiree) have had to protect themselves has been the shelter of their sandbags.
Laid off workers got severance benefits based on their years of service. My particular zip code post office serves as the sorting center for a mix of small suburban neighborhoods along with a large expanse of exurban and rural residents. So, my mail service is far more sheltered from the DeJoy of Trumpism than urban zips or satellite POs. However, getting my vote counted by the county registrar’s office will be another matter altogether.