The Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 provided, “There is established, as an independent establishment of the executive branch of the Government of the United States, the United States Postal Service [USPS].” The USPS, successor to the United States Post Office Department, employed 515,750 “career employees” and had $78.8 billion in revenue in 2022, per its website.. Litigation trends involving such a vast public sector entity are of particular interest.
Docket Alarm has identified 5,937 federal court district filings involving the USPS since the beginning of 2013. The average number of monthly filings has held steady in the high 40s with only a few outliers in which filings spiked to 75 or above or fell into the mid 20s. Cases resolve relatively quickly, pending on average for only about six months. The USPS is a defendant approximately 97% of the time.