Minneapolis / St. Paul News Blog

DECEASED is not a proper " mark up " at the post office. I think you better find out who did this before you point your finger.

Sounds like this peace activist is up to no good. Deceased isn't a stamp used by either service. Maybe she stamped it herself, she is an activist after all.

Hey Hippie Woman,

Do you think that people are really that stupid to believe this story.

You actually had a video posted on Yahoo?

I think you should be prosecuted for filing a false claim to the US Post Office, for the frivolous lawsuit, and for trying to defraud the US Government.

Did you ever stop to think that someone might be screwing with your mind because you are some liberal whose son is in the military and in the middle of a war?

Lady look for a job! everyone is having a hard time... no one should get a free hand out like that for something that she could have done...

What I'm wondering is "Where the heck does one get their hands on a stamp that says "DECEASED" Wow..... Can you buy a stamp like that anywhere? Creepy! Well, anyways if she's lying, she'll need to answer to what she wished for..sad!

Amanda, you aren't getting the point. The US post office is not responsible for something that would be stamped like that. The stampt they use are preset, meaning they don't have a stamp that is capable of having that word on it. Which means one thing for sure...someone else stamped the letter...and through a simple process of logical deduction and statistical analysis you should be able to see that the most likely individual entity to stamp that envelope is the mother herself. There's only one other option and that's that someone is messing with this ladies mail, which is not the fault of the post office. This is one optiont that has less likelihood of being true than the option of the mother stamping the mail...very simple forensic work would need to be done to figure out exactly what happened.

I think the problem is that a question needs to be asked here. If the post office did in fact stamp "deceased", how could they possibly assume that the person was dead? They only send out mail, they don't keep track of who's alive and who isn't. This just doesn't make sense to me. Every letter i've had returned, is just returned; never gotten a stamped one for sure. Return to sender, or "undeliverable" might make more sense. This sounds fishy to me. Besides, if he actually were deceased, she would have been notified prior to the returned letter. And why take so long to make the claim?

Kim,

While we all have our own selfish intentions the point I think most of us have made is that the misuse of the judicial system is going to ruin us, has ruined us, and will continue to ruin us. Your statement suggest that one time is ok, but the flaw in that logic is that if one time is ok for this lady, then one time missing our system is ok for everyone...forget any political issue the politicians are willing to show you on the news...the misuse of our system is the biggest culprit in the dowfall of our entire society...so yes it is ok to attack this womans character because she is the result of just that type of mindset you are exhibiting.

Heather,

You are just the type of person this woman is marketing her attempts to get rich to. If she gets enough morons like you backing her up then it's more liekly she'll get her pay day. That's it I'm going to write a book that talks about how great women are and how men are always wrong...chapter 1 Man:the lesser being...chapter 2 He's always wrong. Then I'm goinna get rich as hell from it and buy an island and move there with 100 hookers and do the follow up book titled...HAHA I trcked all you dumb bitches!

Jeff you rock. I read all of this craziness and was starting to get board. And Lady if you are sincere, accept an apology. but if your lying, do you realize haw much you are embarassing your son. If my mom raised such a stink over it I'd be pretty mad at her.

Folks, this is NOT a frivoulous lawsuit. I would have dropped dead if I had received a letter erroneously marked as saying my child was dead. The post office needs to accept some form of responsibility. And $50,000 is not 'getting rich'. I once shipped boxes from a US territory to the States. It took six weeks for them to finally arrive. I had already filed an insurance claim for lost boxes but they did arrive. It looked as if postal workers had used the boxes as benches to sit on while they had their lunch. They were crushed, ripped, and many things were broken inside. Not to mention the average nasty attitude of a great majority of postal workers. Where do you think the term 'going postal' (meaning going berserk) came from?

First off most of you must live in trailer parks because $50,000 seems to be alot of money to you. I can assure you this women will not get rich off that. I know we live in a crazy world but do you really believe this lady had a rubber stamp made and then used it. By the way what is wrong with being a peace activist? As far as I am concerned she can be whatever she wants to be...she has made the ultimate sacrifice - her child went to war!!!!

The point that the majority of people are making is that this woman suing the US Government for something that they obviously didn't do is ridiculous. No one is doubting that if someone received a returned letter stamped "deceased" on an envelope that they wouldn't be upset or hurt. The point is that they can't then SUE the Government for it. If my paycheck was stolen in the mail and I really needed the money to do some good...I can't SUE the Government or Post Office for it because it upset me or inconvenienced me. Furthermore like someone stated, I believe it's wrong to sue for emotional distress. Everyone goes through emotional distress at some point in their life, that doesn't mean you can sue for it. It's a part of life. When you sue for something you are placing a monetary figure on the recovery of something of value that was lost. Therefore she's basically saying I'm hurt and i'm distressed but for 50K it'll all go away!!! Thats Crap!!!

Possibly because it wasn't stamped that way when the post office had it

Theresa,

Only one of two things could have happened. Either she made up the whole thing and stamped the letter after it was returned back to her possibly because of illegible print or an incorrect mailig addres or.....

Someone close to the Post Office has a major beef with her and stamped it and had it redelivered to her.

In the latter case, she has the burden of proof of proving that she didn't do it and someone from the US government or Post Office did it. Either was she still doesn't deserver 50k for it.

Sounds like the lady is trying to get free money. She could of put that on the letter her self after it got returned. She just using her son to make money. I dont have sympathy for that lady. Any one the does they law sues like this over noneting is just a evil person. She just lazy person trying to still money and anyone judge should throw it out. these law sue like this are getting more and more over nonething just because the ecom. is bad. Sounds like to me the lady did even care about there son to do something like this. Just a scam and anyone that think it is not a scam needs a brain. An the lady is wasting tax payer moneys.

I'm an Iraq Vet. When I was a private in Iraq back in 2004, we would be rounded up every now and then for a working party to help the guys in the mail room. The guys in the military mailrooms do have a stamp marked "deceased".....so it was not the post office's fault, it was the guy working the military mailroom. There are also thousands of pieces of mail that run in and out of these facilities on a daily basis. IN A WAR ZONE MAILROOM, I could easily see how this letter may have gotten placed in the wrong pile accidentally. Although I feel for this woman, she obviously has no rational thinking in her pea brained mind. 1. ---The military has strict accountability people working the mailroom.....I don't think this was done out of trickery by the unit mailroom guys....because they would almost 100% be caught and strictly punished(court marshall)....so obviously it was an accident(the mailroom guys were probably still punished). 2. She knows her son is safe and sound, but yet almost two years afterwards she still has "emotional trauma"....sounds like a get rich quick scheme to me. ----Unfortunatley there are mothers out there who recieve returned mail with the "deseased" stamp for a real reason...it makes me sick to see the psycho on the AP stealing money from the government.

The entire thing comes off as a sham.

I am currently in Iraq now for the second time. What Iraqvet0331 is very true. The military mail rooms handle thousands of pieces of mail a day and are usually way undermanned. The mail coming into Iraq is handled by a combined force of military and civilian, they take little to no care for the mail at all. A good example, my Battalions mail room is handled by one Soldier, he is responsible for sorting all the mail and handing it out to the various units in the BN. So here is one Soldier handling the mail for over 800 troops. So I can see how a small mistake could be made on this end. Now the USPS has automatic mail sorters, they all just scan through a machine, the only time the mail is physically touched is by the Postal Carrier. And if he chose not to deliver a letter then he is tampering with the mail and could be jailed and fined for not delivering it. (I know this as I have worked for the postal service in the past as well). I see this as a simple mistake, I understand how this woman feels and I sympathize with her. However, like various others have stated above, she should be happy that it was just a mistake and her son came home alive and unharmed. So many of our brothers in arms have not returned home, their family gets little to nothing as no monetary value can replace what they have lost. And here she is trying to get 50k for something she actually never lost. Yes she was probably stressed about it, but in this day and age it wouldn’t take long to verify if it was the facts or not. And I can almost guarantee that she already knew her son was fine before she received that letter back. Even here 3 years later it takes 2-3 weeks to get a letter or package. Military policy these days is that the family is notified within 72 hrs if a Soldier is injured or killed. So you are looking at a time frame of the minimum of a month for that letter to get to Iraq and back again. In that time she would of talked or heard from her son or the military if anything had happened. I think she is out for a little cash as that is how our society is these days and is found to be perfectly acceptable. It just makes me sick.

How does the post office know if hes deceased anyway?