posted on Tuesday, June 27, 2006 4:19 PM
by
Lou Michels
The Postman Always Drinks Twice
It's true that postal workers here in the United States generally get a bad rap. Whether it’s Federal Express commercials, or disgruntled mail carriers, or Clifford Claven, the postal employee frequenting the bar in Cheers, post office workers have not enjoyed the best publicity over the last decade or so.
Apparently as part of an effort to polish the image a little, postal workers are subject to a regulation that states that they are prohibited from drinking intoxicating beverages in a “public place” while in uniform. A postal employee in Dayton, Ohio, was terminated for violating this regulation when 30 members of a VFW post signed a letter of complaint to the local post office complaining about the postman's wearing his uniform while drinking at the VFW bar. Although the postman was a regular at the bar (he estimated that he had consumed over three thousand drinks there since 1988), apparently his internal complaints about VFW accounting matters raised his profile sufficiently that he became a target of opportunity. The employee appealed through the Merit Systems Protection Board ("MSPB"), which upheld the termination, noting that the employee had admitted to drinking at the bar and that he was under a last-chance agreement for other misconduct at the time of his termination.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, however, took a dim view of the postal service's action. Specifically, it said that the USPS's interpretation of the drinking regulation was not entitled to any deference. The court noted that the USPS could not have reasonably believed that a VFW hall was a “public place”, because the definition offered by the postal officials-that a public place is wherever postal customers are found-was too broad.
I have no idea how many people funnel through the Dayton, Ohio VFW post on an average workday afternoon, but I suspect it's more than a trivial number. Especially since there were at least 30 people there who were able to identify the postman over time. Moreover, the federal court's running the USPS definition out to its slippery slope conclusion in a case where such an issue was not before the court might have some interesting ramifications for a private employer that sought to enforce its own regulations in a similar situation.
At least the plaintiff in this case was drinking after work.