Joan Najbar Incident Reflects Badly on the United States Postal Service
Joan Najbar Deserved Better Treatment from the United States Postal Service
First, I want to say that most of the postal employees I've dealt with over the years have been polite, and the things I've sent via the Postal Service get to where they are addressed to virtually all the time. And the things I expect to get in the mail arrive 99.9 per cent of the time.
I don't know if one can expect the Postal Service to be legally liable for this mistake with Joan Najbar since it would be hard to prove that putting "DECEASED" on a letter was meant to cause her emotional distress deliberately or done out of spite, but there should've been an apology by the United States Postal Service immediately when the error was brought to their attention, and by a very high ranking official. They have acted very rudely if they didn't apologize. On the other hand, if you could successfully sue people and businesses for being rude, then the civil courts would be perpetually tied up with those cases alone.
But this alleged lack of an apology by the United States Postal Service is indicative of the pettiness and rudeness with which this entity has acted with at times. Even I've witnessed this over the last few years in less shocking ways than Joan Najbar. For instance, a certain postal employee chided me openly for wearing a Barack Obama button last year on my coat. The United States Postal Service used to send Priority Mail tape for free for securing packages that used that mailing option, but they don't provide that tape anymore, even though the postal rates keep going up on a regular basis while their level of service drops.
What Does This Say About A Business That Lets This Joan Najbar Issue Fester for Years?
Here's another thing the United States Postal Service needs to think about. How many times has a simple apology and/or gesture of compensation kept someone from suing another person or business? The Powers-That-Be at the USPS should've not only apologized (time will tell if they actually did), but additionally should have given Joan Najbar a gift card to show more of a sense of decency over this matter. Instead, this matter has remained unresolved for years. And you wonder why the nation's postal service is in such financial straits. It's the little things sometimes that shed light on how a business is run.
Sources:
Paul Walsh: Errant 'DECEASED' on letter prompts Minn. soldier's mom to sue: http://www.startribune.com/local/78218387.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUUI, December 1, 2009, Star Tribune
Published by Roy A. Barnes - Featured Contributor in Politics
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11 Comments
Post a Comment1. The Postal Service doesn’t deliver to individuals. It delivers to addresses. It doesn’t know or have time to care who’s alive or not. The Postal Service didn’t stamp “deceased†on it.
2. If a serviceman dies, official notification of the death is made in person. Any mail that person had would be bundled in with his belongings and returned to his next of kin. The military didn’t stamp “deceased†on it.
3. That leaves one person who had possession of the letter before it was sent and after it was returned. Nobody knows when the “deceased†stamp was applied to the envelope.
This woman clearly has issues including but not limited to a pathological need for attention. Continued publicity probably only serves to worsen whatever issues she’s dealing with. The media need to stop feeding her demons.
Wow, how dumb is this woman's lawyer? He is really going to sue the Postal Service for an endorsement placed on a letter by MILITARY PERSONNEL who deliver OR RETURN mail in all APO/FPO'S. Where did this guy go to school? Ok, here's how it works; If someone, anyone, refuses unopened mail the letter goes back in the mail stream and we return it. The USPS has NO choice but to do what we are asked to do according to the endorsement on the mail piece. Postal employees did NOT place that endorsement on that letter. Research people, RESEARCH!!! What a couple of bone heads!
News flash! The USPS does not carry mailed items onto the battlefield in war zones and hand the mail to servicemen. When something is mailed to an APO or FPO, the Postal Service delivers it to the appropriate service IN THIS COUNTRY and they transport and deliver it. Also if undeliverable, they forward or endorse it as to why it can't be delivered. We can't keep those records! Mistakes Happen. Get over it.
Something somewhere went terribly wrong, but I am not so sure that it was due to the USPS making a grave error. And although I feel her pain, going after money is not the answer. Her son is alive and well, and for that she should be thankful. She is owed an apology, but from who? That remains to be seen.
You guys make good points, but why is then that Joan Najbar would be making two claims with the USPS, and now has a federal lawsuit pending with USPS included? If she is such an anti-war activist, wouldn't her going after the military in the first place had made a better statement not only for her activism, but to the possible true source of the error? Why bother the USPS at all then and shouldn't the USPS had told Najbar in the first claim of '08 to seek recompense with the military? I think my point of the article is that the USPS is the point of contact for the mail sender, and since it's involving the troops, they could've done a better job trying to resolve this with all involved, if just from a customer service standpoint and good PR. USPS mail rates keep going up, but their quality of service is going down in certain areas.
Joan Najbar is attacking the wrong target. The Post Office was simply the messenger returning a letter endorsed "deceased" by the military or it's designated contractor handeling mail in Iraq. The "deceased" marking would have been applied near the intended delivery point ( in Iraq ) by the military. The Post Office has no way of knowing the condition of a particular service member, in fact the Post Office doesn't even know where each APO unit is ( a unique zip code is assigned to each unit, and that unit's location may be classified). The Post Office transfers mail to the military within the borders of the US and receives back incoming or returned mail in the same way. Any return endorsement was applied overseas. Joan Najbar needs to seek her redress from the appropriate and responsible party ( the military unit handleing her sons mail !!!).
As both a company/mail clerk in a combat unit in Vietnam and a 35 year postal employee, I knew what was then the way mail for deceased US forces was handled. The mail was sent, unendorsed, by the company mail clerk to a military postal address, where the death was verified and then the piece was returned to the sender. I do not know what endorsement was eventually put on the piece, but we were told emphatically, never to endorse a piece of mail like that at the company level. I know that some letter carriers do write or stamp "deceased" on letters to postal customers in the US, but most are endorsed with the more general "undeliverable as addressed, unable to forward" which is used for various reasons.
Shouldn't the Post Office have double checked with the military about whether the soldier was actually dead before sending the mail back to Ms. Najbar? To have your letter sent back (with DECEASED on it) via the Post Office is harrowing, and all parties involved with sending and distributing the mail to the troops should make doubly sure that someone is dead before sending back a letter marked DECEASED on it.
i agree with one of the other posters here. having been in the navy for four years, the people that handle it and mark it deceased are the military postal people, not the usps employees. is this the root of the problem? i have to agree, this was a bad mistake made by some insensitive or bird brained person.
What makes you think it was a postal employee? Military mail is handled by the military- there aren't any postal employees in Iraq handling mail- just soldiers and DOD employees.