united-states criminal-law liability
Can I sue the U.S. Post Office for delivering Certified Mail that was open?
<p>A couple of days ago, I went to my local post office and mailed a large envelope with paperwork inside of it and I had addressed it to me and my home address. The reason I did this was to do a 'poor man's patent' in which I could prove at a later date that I came up with an inventive idea/invention before a certain date.</p>

<p>When I was at the post office I had removed the plastic film from the envelopment to expose the sticky strip and then I closed the envelope and then firmly pushed the flap of the envelope against the body of the envelope and I did this several times to make sure that it was sealed. I then took the envelope to the counter and the post office representative put the postage stamp on it and also put a Certified Mail label on the envelope.</p>

<p>Well, when I removed the envelope from my mail box today, the flap of the envelope was open and there was no Certified Mail label on the envelope. This makes me believe that my envelope was tampered with. The odd thing about it is that when I pushed the open flap back down onto the envelope, waited a minute, and then pulled up on the flap, it was stuck to the envelope and would not budge.</p>

<p>Can I sue the U.S. Post Office for delivering this envelope opened and without a Certified Mail label? </p>

<p>No.</p>

<p>The government enjoys sovereign immunity, meaning that it cannot be sued unless it consents to being sued.</p>

<p>The <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/1346" rel="noreferrer">Federal Tort Claims Act (28 U.S.C. § 1346)</a> generally permits negligence actions against federal agencies, including the U.S. Postal Service. But <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/2680" rel="noreferrer">28 U.S.C. § 2680</a> carves out an exception for "any claim arising out of the loss, miscarriage, or negligent transmission of letters or postal matter."</p>

<p>The Supreme Court looked at that exception in 2006 and concluded that it covers cases where "mail either fails to arrive at all or arrives late, <em>in damaged condition</em>, or at the wrong address." <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/546/481/" rel="noreferrer"><em>Dolan v. Postal Service</em>, 546 U.S. 481 (2006)</a>. </p>

<p>Your situation seems to fall pretty squarely in that description. Upon request, a court would dismiss it almost immediately.</p>
