Court Opinion

ID: 9465878
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:58:22.843069+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:25.098995
License: Public Domain

WILKEY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I am in agreement with Judge Wright’s recital of the conflicting and shifting ambiguities which have beset both the statutory definition and the Postal Service’s interpretation of the word “letter” for the purpose of defining the Postal Service’s monopoly. I am in thorough agreement with the statements that “the Postal Service’s interpretations and comments regarding the content of the term have often seemed ambiguous and inconsistent,” (pp.---of 195 U.S.App.D.C., p. 826 of 600 F.2d) and “the most that can be said about the administrative history is that it is something of a muddle.” (P. - of 195 U.S.App.D.C., p. 828 of 600 F.2d.)
I dissent from the court’s affirmance of the Postal Service’s current interpretation of the word “letter” because, in my reading of the lengthy details back of the majority *831opinion’s terse summary of 150 years of statute and statutory interpretation, there emerges only one consistent theme from the Postal Service — it has always latched onto whatever interpretation of the word “letter” which would give it the most extensive monopoly power which Congress at that time seemed disposed to allow.
Not only do I find this total lack of any intellectual consistency offensive, especially when coming from a supposed-to-be responsible government agency, but there is a very practical reason why I think this court should refuse to approve the Postal Service’s current interpretation. If we decline to include the advertising flyers which the Postal Service is intent upon embracing within the word “letter” so as to give its monopoly the most expansive scope, we may then force the Postal Service to go to Congress to define accurately the desired postal monopoly scope. That definition, the desired scope of the Postal Service’s monopoly, is entirely a question of public policy, properly to be determined solely by Congress, and this court should not countenance the Postal Service’s power and revenue grabbing simply because the statute, the statutory history, and the agency’s own administrative interpretations are conflicting and obscure.
On the most important substantive point I do differ with my two colleagues. At the outset the majority opinion points out that the Postal Service “has determined by regulation that the term ‘letter’ in the statutory proscription encompasses any ‘message directed to a specific person or address and recorded in or on a tangible object’ — a definition which clearly includes addressed advertising materials. This litigation turns on the validity of that definition.” (Pp.-- - of 195 U.S.App.D.C., pp. 825-826 of 600 F.2d) And, my colleagues conclude “that the Postal Service has settled upon a reasonable criterion — the presence or absence of an address — and that its definition suffers from no more than the level of arbitrariness which is inevitable.” (P.of 195 U.S.App.D.C., p. 830 of 600 F.2d)
The appellants have strenuously argued that the very advertising circulars or flyers which are the subject matter of the dispute are frequently included as flyers inserted in newspapers which are delivered to specific named addressees at specific residential or business addresses. These flyers or circulars not only have the same text, they are physically the same product of ink and paper, the only difference being that the address in one instance is imprinted on the outside of the newspaper and in the other instance on the envelope containing only the circular or the circular itself. There are numerous examples of this in the record, and we were shown samples at oral argument.
I can see no legal difference in these three instances — name and address printed on the circular itself, on the envelope containing the circular, or on the newspaper containing the circular. Apparently reluctant to take on the powerful press establishment, the Postal Service says it has a monopoly on the first two but not the third. There is no valid distinction, and so the criterion on which my colleagues say this litigation turns, the presence or absence of an address, has no validity whatsoever.
I respectfully dissent.