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Microsoft Word - NI Class Materials W08 Students Picker, Network Industries, Winter, 2008

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U.S. Postal Service v. Council of Greenburgh Civic Associations

453 U.S. 114 (1981)
Justice REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court: We noted probable juris-
diction to decide whether the United States District Court for the Southern District
ofNew York correctly determined that 18 U.S.C. § 1725, which prohibits the deposit
of unstamped mailable matter in a letterbox approved by the United States Postal
Service, unconstitutionally abridges the First Amendment rights of certain civic asso-
ciations in Westchester County, N.Y., 449 U.S. 1076 (1981). ***
I
Appellee Council of Greenburgh Civic Associations (Council) is an umbrella organi-
zation for a number of civic groups in Westchester County, N.Y. Appellee Saw Mill
Valley Civic Association is one of the Councils member groups. In June 1976, the
Postmaster in White Plains, N.Y., notified the Chairman of the Saw Mill Valley Civ-
ic Association that the associations practice of delivering messages to local residents
by placing unstamped notices and pamphlets in the letterboxes of private homes was
in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1725, which provides:
Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits any mailable matter such as state-
ments of accounts, circulars, sale bills, or other like matter, on which no postage
has been paid, in any letter box established, approved, or accepted by the Postal
Service for the receipt or delivery of mail matter on any mail route with intent to
avoid payment of lawful postage thereon, shall for each such offense be fined not
more than $300.
Saw Mill Valley Civic Association and other Council members were advised that if
they continued their practice of placing unstamped notices in the letterboxes of pri-
vate homes it could result in a fine not to exceed $300.
In February 1977, appellees filed this suit in the District Court for declaratory and
injunctive relief from the Postal Services threatened enforcement of § 1725. Appel-
lees contended that the enforcement of § 1725 would inhibit their communication
with residents of the town of Greenburgh and would thereby deny them the freedom
of speech and freedom of the press secured by the First Amendment.
*** [T]he Postal Service offered three general justifications for § 1725: (1) that
§ 1725 protects mail revenues; (2) that it facilitates the efficient and secure delivery
of the mails; and (3) that it promotes the privacy of mail patrons. More specifically,
the Postal Service argued that elimination of § 1725 could cause the overcrowding of
mailboxes due to the deposit of civic association notices. Such overcrowding would
in turn constitute an impediment to the delivery of the mails. Testimony was offered
that § 1725 aided the investigation of mail theft by restricting access to letterboxes,
thereby enabling postal investigators to assume that anyone other than a postal carrier
or a householder who opens a mailbox may be engaged in the violation of the law.
On this point, a postal inspector testified that 10% of the arrests made under the ex-
ternal mail theft statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1708, resulted from surveillance-type opera- Picker, Network Industries, Winter, 2008

104

tions which benefit from enforcement of § 1725. Testimony was also introduced that
§ 1725 has been particularly helpful in the investigation of thefts of government ben-
efit checks from letterboxes.
The Postal Service introduced testimony that it would incur additional expense if
§ 1725 were either eliminated or held to be inapplicable to civic association mate-
rials. If delivery in mailboxes were expanded to permit civic association circulars-but
not other types of nonmailable matter such as commercial materials-mail carriers
would be obliged to remove and examine individual unstamped items found in let-
terboxes to determine if their deposit there was lawful. Carriers would also be con-
fronted with a larger amount of unstamped mailable matter which they would be ob-
liged to separate from outgoing mail. The extra time resulting from these additional
activities, when computed on a nationwide basis, would add substantially to the daily
cost of mail delivery.
The final justification offered by the Postal Service for § 1725 was that the statute
provided significant protection for the privacy interests of postal customers. Section
1725 provides postal customers the means to send and receive mails without fear of
their correspondence becoming known to members of the community.
The Postal Service also argued at trial that the enforcement of § 1725 left appellees
with ample alternative means of delivering their message. The appellees can deliver
their messages either by paying postage, by hanging their notices on doorknobs, by
placing their notices under doors or under a doormat, by using newspaper or nonpos-
tal boxes affixed to houses or mailbox posts, by telephoning their constituents, by en-
gaging in person-to-person delivery in public areas, by tacking or taping their notices
on a door post or letterbox post, or by placing advertisements in local newspapers. A
survey was introduced comparing the effectiveness of certain of these alternatives
which arguably demonstrated that between 70-75% of the materials placed under
doors or doormats or hung from doorknobs were found by the homeowner whereas
approximately 82% of the items placed in letterboxes were found. This incidental
difference, it was argued, cannot be of constitutional significance.
The District Court found the above arguments of the Postal Service insufficient to
sustain the constitutionality of § 1725 at least as applied to these appellees. ***
II
The present case is a good example of Justice Holmes aphorism that a page of histo-
ry is worth a volume of logic.
New York Trust Co. v. Eisner, 256 U.S. 345, 349
(1921). For only by review of the history of the postal system and its present statuto-
ry and regulatory scheme can the constitutional challenge to § 1725 be placed in its
proper context.
By the early 18th century, the posts were made a sovereign function in almost all
nations because they were considered a sovereign necessity. Government without
communication is impossible, and until the invention of the telephone and telegraph,
the mails were the principal means of communication. Kappel Commission, Toward Picker, Network Industries, Winter, 2008

105

Postal Excellence, Report of the Presidents Commission on Postal Organization 47
(Comm. Print 1968). Little progress was made in developing a postal system in Co-
lonial America until the appointment of Benjamin Franklin, formerly Postmaster at
Philadelphia, as Deputy Postmaster General for the American Colonies in 1753. In
1775, Franklin was named the first Postmaster General by the Continental Congress,
and, because of the trend toward war, the Continental Congress undertook its first
serious effort to establish a secure mail delivery organization in order to maintain
communication between the States and to supply revenue for the Army. D. Adie, An
Evaluation of Postal Service Wage Rates 2 (American Enterprise Institute, 1977).
Given the importance of the post to our early Nation, it is not surprising that when
the United States Constitution was ratified in 1789, Art. I, § 8, provided Congress
the power To establish Post Offices and post Roads and To make all Laws which
shall be necessary and proper for executing this task. The Post Office played a vital
yet largely unappreciated role in the development of our new Nation. Stagecoach
trails which were improved by the Government to become post roads quickly became
arteries of commerce. Mail contracts were of great assistance to the early development
of new means of transportation such as canals, railroads, and eventually airlines. Dur-
ing this developing stage, the Post Office was to many citizens situated across the
country the most visible symbol of national unity.
The growth of postal service over the past 200 years has been remarkable. Annual
revenues increased from less than $40 million in 1790 to close to $200 million in
1829 when the Postmaster General first became a member of the Cabinet. However,
expenditures began exceeding revenues as early as the 1820s as the postal structure
struggled to keep pace with the rapid growth of the country westward. Because of
this expansion, delivery costs to the South and West raised average postal costs na-
tionally. To prevent competition from private express services, Congress passed the
Postal Act of 1845, which prohibited competition in letter mail and established what
is today referred to as the postal monopoly.
More recently, to deal with the problems of increasing deficits and shortcomings in
the overall management and efficiency of the Post Office, Congress passed the Postal
Reorganization Act of 1970. This Act transformed the Post Office Department into a
Government-owned corporation called the United States Postal Service. The Postal
Service today is among the largest employers in the world, with a work force nearing
700,000 processing 106.3 bi