# Loeffler v. Frank

> Supreme Court of the United States · June 13, 1988 · 486 U.S. 549

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9431338

## Case

- **Full name:** Loeffler v. Frank, Postmaster General of the United States
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** June 13, 1988
- **Citations:** 486 U.S. 549; 56 U.S.L.W. 4554; 46 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 38,003; 46 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 1659; 108 S. Ct. 1965; 100 L. Ed. 2d 549; 1988 U.S. LEXIS 2586
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by White
- **Judges:** Blackmun, Brennan, Marshall, Stevens, Scalia, White, Rehnquist, O'Connor, Kennedy
- **Cited by:** 532 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9431338

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that "sue and be sued” provisions of agencies should be liberally construed and that " 'authorization of suits against federal entities engaged in commercial activities may waive sovereign immunity from awards of interest as an incident of suit’ ”
- stating that the general impetus behind the Postal Reorganization Act was Congress’ desire that the “Postal Service ‘be run more like a business than had its predecessor, the Post Office Department’ ” (citation omitted)
- explaining that when Congress creates an agency as a “sue and be sued” entity, Congress thereby waives sovereign immunity from the normal incidents of suit, such as interest on a damages award
- recognizing that the United States is immune from suit, and that the courts lack jurisdiction to entertain any action against it unless it expressly waives its sovereign immunity
- explaining that by "including a sue-and-be-sued clause in" the Postal Service's "charter, Congress has cast off the Service's cloak of sovereignty" (quotation marks omitted)

## Opinion text

*566 Justice White,
with whom The Chief Justice and Justice O’Connor join, dissenting.
Essentially for the reasons stated by the en banc Court of Appeals below, I believe that prejudgment interest is not available in Title VII suits against the Postal Service. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9431338. Public record. Not legal advice.