Jones v. United States Postal Service

Background

The plaintiffs sued the United States Postal Service, Louis DeJoy as Postmaster General, and Donald J. Trump as President. They sought declaratory relief and a preliminary injunction, meaning a court order issued before final judgment, concerning the timely delivery of absentee ballots for the November 3, 2020 national elections.

On September 21, 2020, the court granted the plaintiffs’ preliminary-injunction motion in part and directed the parties to prepare a consistent order. The court adopted the parties’ proposed terms on September 25. The preliminary injunction required the Government to submit guidance addressing specified topics, and the court later clarified some of its terms.

The Government submitted proposed guidance, later revised it, and the plaintiffs proposed edits. The parties resolved some differences but continued to disagree about how the guidance should address late and extra delivery and collection trips for election mail.

Court’s analysis

The court said the Postal Service was already subject to preliminary injunctions issued by other federal district courts concerning election mail. It therefore sought to avoid guidance that could conflict with those orders and create operational confusion. Because the national elections were approaching and the Postal Service was already handling substantial election-mail volumes, the court said the guidance needed to be finalized and distributed promptly.

The court adopted the Government’s latest proposal in substantial part because it was largely consistent with the existing preliminary injunction. But it identified two areas requiring further discussion.

First, the plaintiffs proposed language stating that extra trips should be used to ensure that ballots entered within eight days before Election Day and during the relevant period afterward reached election officials by applicable state deadlines. The Government instead proposed language focused on ballots entered on Election Day and deadlines on Election Day. The court said the existing preliminary injunction authorized and encouraged extra trips to facilitate timely delivery without a time limit. It declined to approve new temporal mandates or restrictions and found the Government’s wording potentially confusing because it might suggest that extra trips were limited to mail entered on Election Day or to deadlines on Election Day.

Second, the Government proposed stating that authorizing late and extra trips through November 6, 2020, would not result in discipline. The plaintiffs proposed language referring specifically to authorization through November 30. The court declined to impose the plaintiffs’ proposed November 30 requirement because the preliminary injunction contained no time limit for late and extra trips used to support timely delivery. The court nevertheless agreed that the Government’s wording could confuse Postal Service employees about whether such trips were forbidden after November 6.

Order

The court ordered the parties to meet and confer and propose agreed-upon language resolving both issues no later than 3:00 p.m. on October 9, 2020. Judge Marrero’s order addressed the guidance required under the existing preliminary injunction rather than deciding the underlying claims in the lawsuit.

Effect

The order affected the plaintiffs, the Postal Service, DeJoy, and Trump as the defendants. It also concerned the instructions that the Postal Service would provide to its personnel about late and extra trips for election mail.