• @tal
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    7 months ago

    The suit is against the Swedish Transport Agency, according to the article.

    In some cases, you can’t sue the state due to sovereign immunity. However, in this case, it’s acting as a business. And I’m pretty sure that in the US, when the government is acting as a business, sovereign immunity generally doesn’t apply.

    googles

    In the US, it sounds like originally you couldn’t sue the postal service due to sovereign immunity. Then the US waived sovereign immunity in a number of cases, but specifically kept an exception for delayed mail, not exposing the USPS to liability for it. So my guess is that this lawsuit couldn’t happen in the US.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolan_v._United_States_Postal_Service

    Dolan v. United States Postal Service, 546 U.S. 481 (2006), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, involving the extent to which the United States Postal Service has sovereign immunity from lawsuits brought by private individuals under the Federal Tort Claims Act. The Court ruled that an exception to the FTCA that barred liability for the “negligent transmission of mail” did not apply to a claim for injuries caused when someone tripped over mail left by a USPS employee. Instead, the exception only applied to damage caused to the mail itself or that resulted from its loss or delay.

    But it sounds like that’s pretty borderline, and if Sweden’s legal environment is slightly different, it might be acceptable to sue on that point in Sweden.

    EDIT: Oh, I’m sorry. PostNord is the equivalent to the USPS, the SOE that does the delivery, and where the strike is occurring. The STA is the license-issuing authority.