Holding Court is a series by retired Rye City Court Judge Joe Latwin. Latwin retired from the court in December 2022 after thirteen years of service to the City.
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By Joe Latwin
February is not the usually busy month for the Supreme Court. Not so this past month.
The most noted decision was on tariffs, Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump. For those who regularly read this column, you had a preview if you read my April 15th column. In that column, I predicted the thinking of the recent decision. The Court found that tariffs are a tax that may only be imposed by Congress. It found that the law Congress passed – the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) of 1977 – that said that the President had the power in emergencies to “investigate, block during the pendency of an investigation, regulate, direct and compel, nullify, void, prevent or prohibit . . . importation or exportation.” The Court found that the delegation of those powers did not include the power to impose tariffs.
In United States Postal Service v. Konan, Konan owns two houses a block apart in Texas. Konan leases rooms to tenants in both houses and occasionally stays at them herself. The Postal Service delivers mail for all the houses in the neighborhood to a central structure with a box for each house. The Postal Service distributes keys to the owners of the houses so that they can retrieve their mail. As the homeowner, Konan received the keys to the boxes for both houses. Konan kept the keys and distributed the mail to her tenants daily, and she also received some of her own mail one address. After Konan noticed that no mail had arrived at one of her houses, she learned that the assigned carrier had changed the listed owner from Konan’s name to a tenant’s name. The same carrier then authorized a change of the lock to allow the tenant to have his own mail key without Konan’s consent. Konan confronted the employees at the local post office about these changes. A supervisor at the local post office explained to Konan that the Postal Service would stop delivering mail to her address until the Postal Service Inspector General’s office investigated and determined the proper owner. Konan then received no mail to the address for a couple of months before service resumed. Konan then learned that the same carrier had mail addressed to her and her tenants returned to senders as “undeliverable.” Pretty despicable treatment from the Post Office.
Konan alleged that Postal Service employees intentionally withheld her mail and interfered with its delivery. Under the Federal Tort Claims Act, Congress waived that sovereign immunity for certain tort suits based on the conduct of Government employees. But Congress retained sovereign immunity for all claims “arising out of the loss, miscarriage, or negligent transmission of letters or postal matter.”
The Supreme Court held that the United States retains sovereign immunity for claims arising out of the intentional non-delivery of mail because both “miscarriage” and “loss” of mail under the Federal Tort Claims Act’s postal exception can occur as a result of the Postal Service’s intentional failure to deliver the mail.
In Hain Celestial Group, Inc. v. Palmquist, the Palmquists fed their child baby food that was made by Hain Celestial Group, Inc., and that they purchased from Whole Foods Market, Inc. When the child was 2½ years old, he began exhibiting serious developmental disorders and was diagnosed with a range of physical and mental conditions that some doctors attributed to heavy-metal poisoning. Palmquists sued both Hain and Whole Foods in Texas state court, alleging state-law product liability and negligence claims against Hain, and state-law breach-of-warranty and negligence claims against Whole Foods. Hain, a Delaware corporation with a principal place of business in New York, removed the case to federal court based on diversity of citizenship. Jurisdiction based on diversity requires diversity of citizenship among all the parties and an amount in controversy exceeding $75,000. Federal courts may exercise diversity jurisdiction only when no adverse party is from the same State, but Whole Foods and the Palmquists are all Texas citizens. As a result, the District Court lacked jurisdiction. Hain sought to cure this problem by arguing in its notice of removal that Whole Foods had been improperly joined in the lawsuit and should be dismissed, which would have established complete diversity between Hain and the Palmquists. The District Court agreed with Hain, dismissed Whole Foods.
The Supreme Court held that because the District Court erroneously dismissed Whole Foods it did not cure the jurisdictional defect that existed when this case was removed to federal court, The judgment against the Palmquists was vacated.
