‘I just want my mailbox moved’

Chuck Klein and his wife, now in their 80s, travel nearly half-a-mile from their home in Brown County just to check their mail. If they receive a package too large for the mailbox or one that requires a signature, they have to make a 10-mile round trip to the post office in Georgetown to pick it up. Checking the mail wasn’t always a lengthy walk or 0.4-mile drive up Hillman Ridge Road, and sometimes a trip to the Georgetown Post Office. Klein and his wife once received letters in their mailbox and big packages at their home located on their property on Hillman Ridge Road outside of Georgetown, but the USPS’s decision to declare the road unsafe for mail delivery has led to a lawsuit being filed.

Klein was among the plaintiffs who filed a lawsuit against the USPS late last year in the United States District Court, Southern District of Ohio Western Division. Also named as plaintiffs in the case are Annette Klein, Eric Havens, and Shandra Havens.

Listed as defendants in the case are the USPS, Mary Mitchell (postmaster, Georgetown Post Office) in her official capacity, and Terrence Maney (Post Office Operations Manager) in his official capacity.

The complaint filed reads, “This is a case about arbitrary and capricious government conduct, without evidentiary justification, selectively discriminating against Plaintiffs and denying them a service the government provides to many millions of Americans: Mail delivery to their properties. The government action is an abuse of discretion, contrary to law, and unsupported by evidence.”

The plaintiffs seek no money in the suit, according to Klein. Klein said he only wants his mailbox moved back to his property.

“I just want my mailbox moved,” said Klein.

Klein, a retired member of law enforcement, purchased a farm on Hillman Ridge Road outside of Georgetown in 2006. In 2013, Klein and his wife decided to move to their farm in Brown County in retirement.

Klein’s 130 acre farm is bordered by two creeks with lots of wooded area, the perfect place to settle down after retirement if you love the rural life.

“We bought it as a place for retirement and as a place for our grandchildren to be able to come out and have a safe place to play,” Klein said of his farm in Brown County.

Klein said it was in 2014 when he asked the USPS if he could have his mailbox moved to his property from a “cluster” of mailboxes located four-tenths-of-a-mile up the road from his property line. Klein’s request was approved, and his mailbox was moved to his property line in 2014. Klein said he received mail there for the next two-and-a-half years.

Hillman Ridge Road, like a number of other roads in rural Brown County, is a narrow road that can be difficult for two vehicles to pass by each other when traveling in opposite directions.

Klein said problems started after an altercation between a mail carrier and one of his former neighbors when their vehicles struggled to pass by each other on the narrow roadway, resulting in damage to one vehicle.

“This neighbor blocked him (mail carrier) and got into a shouting match with him, and I happened to come along right behind them on my way out and I’m witnessing all of this stuff,” said Klein.

The former neighbor finally agreed to move her vehicle out of the way so both vehicles could fit through, according to Klein. Klein said the former neighbor scratched her vehicle in the process of moving out of the way so both vehicles could pass by. Klein said he thought it had ended there, but his then neighbor went as far as to file a claim against the post office, claiming it was the USPS mail carrier’s fault her vehicle was scratched.

Klein said it was that incident that led to the USPS’s decision to declare Hillman Ridge Road unsafe for delivery by a mail carrier, and he would only find this out after he stopped receiving mail at his mailbox on his property. Klein said he wasn’t given notice by the USPS.

“No one told me, I just didn’t get mail for a couple of days,” Klein said of when he stopped receiving mail at the box on his property.

After not receiving mail for a couple of days, Klein contacted the postmaster at the USPS Office in Georgetown.

He was then notified that the road had been deemed unsafe and mail carriers would no longer be delivering mail on his property.

“I was dumbfounded,” said Klein. “I didn’t know what to do.”

Brown County is filled with rural roads, some of which take careful driving to navigate. But Klein’s argument brings to question what factors are taken into consideration when deeming a road unsafe for delivery by a mail carrier.

Klein said he is highly appreciative of the work by local USPS mail carriers, and he knows they are not responsible for the decision made by the USPS to deem Hillman Ridge Road unsafe for mail delivery.

“There’s no animosity here. They’re just doing their jobs and what they think is right. They’re following their rules,” Klein said of the postal workers.

Klein was told he would not receive mail until his mailbox was moved back to the “cluster” of mailboxes on Hillman Ridge Road, four-tenths-of-a-mile from his property line.

After checking the road at the request of Klein, one postmaster decided the road was safe for mail delivery and allowed Klein to move his box back to his property; but according to Klein the mail carrier refused to deliver mail to the box on his property because the road had been declared unsafe and the declaration, technically, had not been lifted. So, mail delivery was stopped again to the mailbox on Klein’s property last year.

“That’s why I filed suit. I said, ‘Enough is enough, I’m going to have to do something about this,’” said Klein.

If a state,county, or township roadway is declared unsafe, is it then required to undergo repairs to make it safe?

The Ohio Department of Transportation is responsible for the state system of roads (interstates or U.S. routes outside of municipalities, according to information provided by ODOT.

State or U.S. routes within a corporation’s limits are maintained by that municipality. Local routes, including residential streets, are maintained by the city, village, county, or township, depending on where the route is located. ODOT does not maintain local routes, according to information found at https://www.transportation.ohio.gov/about-us/basics/maintenance.

The defendants in the case filed a motion to dismiss on April 3 for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, and the plaintiff’s later responded to the motion to dismiss.

“USPS has never provided a traffic engineering report justifying its arbitrary refusal to serve Klein although other similarly situated residents in the same county receive USPS mail service at their properties and even on roads in lesser condition than Klein’s road,” it said in the amended complaint by the plaintiffs.

In a response to Klein from his attorney Richard Ganulin, Ganulin said that the government continues to argue that Klein does not have a right to claim in federal court an unconstitutional denial of equal protection, but rather he can only argue a deprivation of a statutory right to the Postal Regulatory Commission.

“The same culpable conduct can violate more than one law. The unlawful USPS conduct can be both a constitutional deprivation and a statutory deprivation,” it said in Ganulin’s recent email response to Klein.

The plaintiffs are now awaiting a decision.

“Now it’s up to the judge to determine if the case goes forward,” Klein said in a recent email to The News Democrat, Ripley Bee, and Brown County Press.