Fort Wayne Community Schools v. EDUC. ASS'N, Civ. No. F 89-205.

• Decision Date: 17 August 1990
• Docket Number: Civ. No. F 89-205.
• Citation: 742 F. Supp. 1031
• Parties: FORT WAYNE COMMUNITY SCHOOLS, Plaintiff, v. FORT WAYNE EDUCATION ASSOCIATION; and United States Postal Service, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Indiana

742 F. Supp. 1031

FORT WAYNE COMMUNITY SCHOOLS, Plaintiff, v. FORT WAYNE EDUCATION ASSOCIATION; and United States Postal Service, Defendants.

Civ. No. F 89-205.

United States District Court, N.D. Indiana, Fort Wayne Division.

August 17, 1990.

James P. Fenton, Barrett & McNagny, Daniel E. Serban, Shambaugh, Kast, Beck & Williams, Fort Wayne, Ind., for plaintiff.

Richard J. Darko, Indianapolis, Ind., Lisa A. Olson, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Civ. Div., Washington, D.C., Tina Nommay, Office of U.S. Atty., Fort Wayne, Ind., for defendants.

ORDER ON MOTIONS FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

ALLEN SHARP, Chief Judge.

The undisputed factual background for this cause is set forth in the court's Order on Motions to Dismiss and to Abstain from Exercising Jurisdiction, published at 735 F.Supp. 907 (N.D.Ind.1990).

The single issue presented here is the legal question whether the Private Express Statutes,¹ recently interpreted by the Supreme Court in Regents of the University of California v. Public Employment Relations Board (Regents), 485 U.S. 589, 108 S.Ct. 1404, 99 L.Ed.2d 664 (1988), prohibit the Fort Wayne Community Schools from carrying Fort Wayne Education Association correspondence to union membership — pursuant to the parties' collective bargaining agreement — without the payment of postage to the Postal Service.

All parties to this litigation acknowledge, as they must, that the general prohibition of the Private Express Statutes applies to the carriage of correspondence involved here. The question is whether such carriage falls within one of the exceptions to the Statutes. Only the "letters-of-the-carrier" exception is relevant here.

The "letters-of-the-carrier" exception appears at 18 U.S.C. § 1694 and provides:

Whoever ... carries, otherwise than in the mail, any letters or packets, except such as relate ... to the current business of the carrier ... shall, except as otherwise provided by law, be fined not more than $50 (emphasis added).

The Supreme Court in Regents noted that without this exception no private entity could operate an internal mail system at all. Regents, 485 U.S. at 594, 108 S.Ct. at 1408. The Court found this exception a narrow one, limited to letters that qualify as "business of the carrier," id. at 597, 108 S.Ct. at 1410, but declined to elaborate upon precisely what constitutes the carrier's current business. The Court simply held that the union's efforts to organize employees into a bargaining unit did not relate to the current business of the university and thus did not come within the exception.

The Fort Wayne case is distinguishable from Regents. Unlike the union in that case, the Fort Wayne Education Association serves as the exclusive bargaining representative for the school district's employees. The teachers union argues that its business as exclusive representative is the school corporation's business also, thus bringing the union correspondence within the "letters-of-the-carrier" exception. This court disagrees, however, and finds that this distinction has no significance for purposes of the Private Express Statutes.

In the only other Supreme Court case addressing the "letters-of-the-carrier" exception, United States v. Erie R. Co., 235 U.S. 513, 35 S.Ct. 193, 59 L.Ed. 335 (1915), the Court held that the specific letters at issue fell within the scope of the exception because "they were written by an...