Dean Krent argues Postal Service case before U.S. Supreme Court

In a case expected to determine whether private citizens and businesses can sue the U.S. Postal Service under federal antitrust laws, Chicago-Kent Dean Harold J. Krent on December 1 argued before the United States Supreme Court that the U.S. Postal Service falls within the antitrust laws because it operates more like a private business than a federal agency.

The case was originally heard by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, which concurred with the U.S. government that the postal service, as a federal agency, cannot be sued under federal antitrust laws. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit surprisingly reversed the lower court ruling, holding that Congress in the 1970 Postal Reorganization Act launched the postal service into the commercial world, and thus subjected the postal service to liability for its commercial wrongs.

In the Supreme Court, lawyers for the Bush administration argued that Congress, in restructuring the postal service into a more business-like, competitive entity, nonetheless retained the service’s status as a federal agency immune to liability. Dean Krent countered that the postal service bears all the earmarks of a private company as opposed to a government agency and therefore can be sued like any other company that exploits its monopoly and suppresses competition.

Dean Krent expects the justices to reach a decision this spring in U.S. Postal Service v. Flamingo Industries Ltd., No. 02-1290.